Unsung Composers

Here's a curious case. Hans Franke was a prolific composer - 869 works in all categories, including 19 symphonies, 10 masses, 8 concert overtures, 2 piano concertos, etc., of which, tragically, only 87 survived the allied bombing of Dresden in February 1945. Why curious? Because here we have a 20th century composer who appears to have composed in an entirely 19th century idiom. I recently discovered the following CD featuring his 1st Piano Concerto in F (Op.796, 1943) and 6th Symphony in A minor (Op.790, 1936):
http://www.edition49.de/shop/?uid=0ac10e8c8601b37961a1709724fc39fa&action=detail&BestNr=VF+8035-00 (http://www.edition49.de/shop/?uid=0ac10e8c8601b37961a1709724fc39fa&action=detail&BestNr=VF+8035-00)
Excerpts can be auditioned here:
https://www.amazon.de/Hans-Franke/dp/B001B9VG7U/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1531171287&sr=8-2&keywords=hans+franke (https://www.amazon.de/Hans-Franke/dp/B001B9VG7U/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1531171287&sr=8-2&keywords=hans+franke)
I'll leave PC1 to Mark to describe (sorry, Mark!), but the (39-minute) 6th Symphony is a thoroughly enjoyable piece which has certainly grown on me in recent days. It could easily have been written in, say, the 1880s. Oh, and by the way: the works are superbly done by conductor Christoph Hammer and the Brandenburg State Orchestra (Frankfurt/Oder), with that adventurous and accomplished pianist Oliver Triendl.

For those who can read German, there's a website dedicated to Franke here:
https://hans-franke.de/ (https://hans-franke.de/)

The Piano Concerto? Well, I guess if you can imagine an 1880s high-romantic Mozart pastische then you may come somewhere near it. The sound bites of the CD's first three tracks in the amazon.de link (https://www.amazon.de/Hans-Franke/dp/B001B9VG7U/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1531171287&sr=8-2&keywords=hans+franke) actually give a very fair impression. Like the Symphony it is, as Alan says, superbly played with huge joi de vivre by all concerned and is a very entertaining listen, but it really is the oddest, doubly anachronistic thing.

The Symphony is a different matter: it's a good, solid work, the idiom of which is 100% second-half of the 19th century. I also have a CD of Franke's 19th centuryesque chamber music (a piano quintet and two piano trios - details on the German language Franke web site Alan linked to) which is consistently charming, if perhaps coming across as rather naïve. Judging only by these two CDs my impression is that Franke was a first-rate craftsman, but one completely devoid of any musical personality, leading him to ape slavishly the models of the past.

I have both these CD's and have to admit that they are great favourites of mine - along with those of Schmidt-Kowalski - although here there is a more direct link with the 19th century, especially via Carl Reinecke! I have no problem with the Piano Concerto being a pastiche of the early 19th century - and enjoy the music for what it is - and obviously well-crafted at that! Hopefully we will hear more from this composer of considerable promise!

I see there's also recordings available from the same source of Franke's Little Suite for String Orchestra and the String Quartet No.4. It's a pity that that's coupled with works by Dvorak, Witte and Kodaly. No coupling for the Suite as far as I can see.

Occasionally I dig out the CD with Franke's 6th Symphony and I have it to say I enjoy it every time I give it another spin. Don't know it? It's still apparently available:
https://www.edition49shop.de/cds/5374/hans-franke-cd?number=VF-8035-10

(https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51Hdd-5wqyL.jpg)

Here's an interesting assessment of Franke:
http://classicalmusicguide.com/viewtopic.php?t=21555

Now that amazon.de says that the CD is unavailable, is there any way of hearing excerpts which will help me make up my mind, as, including shipping, the cost of the CD is close to 30 euros?

Mind you, if my test question ("Would Reinecke have approved?") is answered in the affirmative, I probably ought to go ahead and order it.  I was ,however, disappointed with the anachronistic af Sillen CD when I took a punt on that - it bored me!

I am going ahead and ordering it, thanks to Mark's good offices. The piano concerto is an advance on Field, but we haven't reached Chopin. This is reactionary composing just as I like it, with not a hint of pastiche.

Terry, you're going to love this. It's Reinecke plus a bit of heavy brass. Absolutely marvellous.

There's no pastiche here, by the way. Franke just carried on composing in the mid-romantic idiom that came naturally to him.

Well, the Franke has arrived, and what a revelation !

The Piano Concerto I would have guessed at 1820. Melodious and a generous-spirited work.

The Symphony I would have had a stab at being composed in 1875. Very late Rietz or early Rudorff, so "Reinecke with brass" is very apt!!

Loved the Cd on first hearing. It will be played often here!

It's played often here too! So glad you like it.

It's the brass writing that hints at a later date, especially in the finale - but who cares?

This is such a delectable offering (the Piano Concerto ,played with tenderness and nobility by our new member Oliver Triendl) that I have written to the distributors, suggesting that they send a copy for review by Musicweb International. It deserves to sell like hot cakes.
I wonder,Alan, whether this topic has now crossed over to Recordings and Broadcasts?

Let's leave it here for now.

As it appears that the Symphony is not by Franke at all, but by Fritz Kauffmann, please follow this link:
https://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php/topic,9306.0.html

Are we also sure that his Piano Concerto opus 796 is by Emilie Meyer?.  I have my doubts.

No, it isn't - I've edited my post in the Kauffmann thread accordingly. Apologies.

Oh! Is that Kauffmann's Op.18 symphony - published when Franke was 4 years old! - being passed off as Franke's? How odd.

Are the first four notes of the Klavierkonzert F-dur "F A F C" followed by a pause and a F major arpeggio in 8th-notes?

The reason I ask is because Wölfl's 3rd concerto of ca.1807 has the same movement openings (including a variations finale), key, duration...- the whole thing is on YouTube if someone who (unlike me) has heard the (quite unusually Classical, you were saying??) Franke concerto wants to compare it to the Wölfl concerto.

Eric, Wölfl's 3rd concerto (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzvxpW_7PM4) is absolutely the same work as Franke's Piano Concerto!

In the meantime, Christian Hammer was kind enough to reply (translated):

QuoteIn fact, it is not news that Hans Franke drew on the work of other composers. There was probably a similar case years before the CD recording with the Anhaltische Philharmonie Dessau under Golo Berg, who were also supposed to record a symphony by Hans Franke. It just came out beforehand that it was in no way a composition by him.
Given the high number of numbered works, one must inevitably become suspicious. I made the recording at the invitation of the publishing house Vogt & Fritz. The score that was made available to me is a handwritten one with 4 entries from performances, 2 of which were in the Berlin Philharmonie (1941 + 1942) supposedly under Wilhelm Furtwängler.
That's all I can tell you.

I seem to remember Bo Hyttner from Sterling talking about such a case with Golo Berg - and this may have been the one.

Ok, not a bad total guess, then.
Wow. Not unprecedented (for example, a recording of Kraus' symphonies awhile back stealth-contained two that while published under Kraus' name, turned out to be by Cambini, I think.)
Could someone please inform the record label? ;) Ah ok, done- thanks. Any idea whether they are considering changing anything about the release on future appearances?

This is like Joyce Hatto meets Italo Calvino.

Does Italo Calvino have some history of forgery I was wholly unaware of? (Giacinto Scelsi, now, but Italo Calvino?)

Quote from: eschiss1 on Monday 01 January 2024, 15:41Does Italo Calvino have some history of forgery I was wholly unaware of? (Giacinto Scelsi, now, but Italo Calvino?)

No, I was referring to the plot twists in his novel "If on a winter's night a traveler...".

I have an old LP of Lindpaintner's Concertino in E flat major played by the Berlin Symphony Orchestra.  It is on YouTube and the performer is Klocker.
I also have a CD on the Orfeo label of Heinrich Baermann's Concertino in E flat major (this time played by the Prague Chamber Orchestra).  The performer is, coincidentally, Klocker.

They are one and the same piece.

QuoteWölfl's 3rd concerto is absolutely the same work as Franke's Piano Concerto

Fascinating! So now the sleuthing turns to the other Franke's CD's three chamber works - who composed the Piano Quintet in F sharp minor and the Piano Trios in D minor and C major he claimed as his?

It's quite a beginning to 2024, isn't it?

We have had,of course, the Joachim masquerading as Veit pretty recently.
 The sleevenote of the Lindpaintner and the CD booklet of the Baermann are silent about the identical nature of the work, but one has to wonder what the performer, and discoverer of so many unexpected clarinet concertos, Herr Klocker, knew, and whether the work he performed was actually by neither of those composers.....
Now we have the Franke/Wolfl/Kauffmann exotica.

I'm concerned that no public acknowledgment of Franke's evident dissimulation has been forthcoming. For example, should Vogt & Fritz still be selling their CD now that we know for sure who the actual composers are?
https://vogtundfritzsound.de/musikcd/klassik/hans-franke/

Maybe they don't know until someone tells them definitively.

If we can identify the chamber works, (1), and the record label does not change them, (2), then Musicweb's reviewer may be interested in a - belated - update to their 2004 review of that disc (https://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2004/May04/Franke_trio_quintet.htm). Maybe. Later than never. (And whatever label's taken over Signum's stock ...)

Is it ok if I comment in the comment section of the IMSLP page of the Wölfl, "reused" by Hans Franke in his "piano concerto in F major" or something like that ;) or should we leave this discussion mostly here for now.

(https://i.postimg.cc/BbNFhzgt/double.jpg)

Interesting they both have very similar moustaches and high foreheads

That's uncanny. Franke must have been quite an operator (to use a photo of the young Kauffmann as himself).

Could not both photos be of Kauffmann?

There's also a Franke Gavotte in G? Op.810 for violin and piano on YouTube but I don't know if it's in-the-same-lines. (Likewise a question with the 1 or 2 chamber music CDs - at least one of which, of two trios and a piano quintet, is probably of more extended works..., again.)

Quote from: Wheesht on Monday 01 January 2024, 19:46Could not both photos be of Kauffmann?

That's the implication, yes.

Quote from: eschiss1 on Monday 01 January 2024, 19:02Is it ok if I comment in the comment section of the IMSLP page of the Wölfl, "reused" by Hans Franke in his "piano concerto in F major" or something like that ;) or should we leave this discussion mostly here for now.

I don't see why not - now that the fact's been established.

Quote from: Mark Thomas on Monday 01 January 2024, 18:38Maybe they don't know until someone tells them definitively.

I'm sure they must already know.

If the conductor now knows, has he not told them? (I'm assuming from what he has told us that he made the recording in good faith as a work by Franke and only subsequently found out the truth.)

(http://quiosq.eu/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/scientists.jpg)
Left to right: Johannes van der Waals, Hendrik Lorentz and Pieter Blok. Three scientists working in the Netherlands around 1901. Never underestimate fashion and convention.

In short: I think we're making too much of the similarities in appearance.

You may be right; on the other hand, we're dealing with deliberate deception here...

Quote from: Ilja on Monday 01 January 2024, 15:13The score that was made to me is a handwritten one with 4 entries from performances, 2 of which were in the Berlin Philharmonie (1941 + 1942) supposedly under Wilhelm Furtwängler.

Is there any way of finding out whether the Symphony in A minor was actually conducted as described above? Is there a historical record of Furtwängler's wartime concerts?

This page (http://patangel.free.fr/furt/conce_en.htm#a1941) shows no performances of a Franke symphony. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Furtwängler had been acquainted with Kauffmann's work to some extent.

That said, the Nazis were really desperate for performances of proper Aryan music at the time. The simultaneously hilarious, tragic and pathetic story of the search for a replacement to Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream bears witness to that.

So, the Furtwängler connection is most probably a fiction.

By the way, here's a link to the Hans Franke website:
https://hans-franke.de/

I have just emailed them concerning the Symphony.

Quote from: Ilja on Monday 01 January 2024, 21:16It wouldn't surprise me at all if Furtwängler had been acquainted with Kauffmann's work to some extent.

On the other hand, if Kauffmann's works had been removed from libraries and/or been long out of print, the conductor might never have come across him.

For comparison purposes, is there any evidence that he conducted any of the more unfamiliar/second-tier (Austro-German) symphonies of the late nineteenth century? I certainly can't find any examples in the concert programmes to which Ilja kindly supplied a link.

will have to check. Fortunately a fairly complete Furtwängler repertory/concert program exists(ed?) at the Tahra site, so shouldn't be too hard. He premiered one of Ewald Straesser's symphonies, iirc, but, wrong century for your question... just as Berwald 2 (which he conducted in Stockholm October 17 1920) is the wrong area and time (1840s)... will keep looking. (Indeed, asking specifically if he conducted obscure symphonies from Austria or Germany from the late 19th century is going to take awhile to answer- I'll make sure their composers begin with the letter Q, too...)

Note that if the Liszt Faust symphony counts (and isn't too early)- certainly an appearance of it from a major conductor nowadays in concert is while not unheard of fairly rare- he programmed it about 10 times between 1913 and 1927.

Also, not a symphony and neither German nor Austrian, true, but he programmed "H. Götz"'s - Hermann Goetz's? - piano concerto in Berlin in January 1938 with Eduard Erdmann at the piano. His repertoire was, in any event, wide-ranging by most standards.

Liszt's Faust Symphony is a major work by a major composer. I'm thinking of symphonies by, say, Bruch, Gernsheim, Reinecke, Fuchs, Herzogenberg, etc.

FWIW, my hunch is that these composers were all regarded as passé and not worth bothering with.

Concertos, of course, may well have been the choice of the soloists involved.

And he was probably, on the evidence, more interested in promoting living composers like Sekles, Braunfels, Hausegger, and others, yes. (Fuchs was also still alive, it's true.) (Reznicek's Tanz-Sinfonie -does- feature in the concerts of 24-25 November 1929, but you didn't mention Reznicek.)

Agreed. Other examples are Pfitzner and Hessenberg.

Who is the perpetrator here?  Was Hans Franke a phony who somehow imagined that performing ensembles in the age of serialism would be interested in music that sounded as if it were written in 1820?  Or are the people promoting Franke the ones who are the authors of the hoax, using a long dead but wholly innocent person as the front for their scheme?  And to what end?

Fair enough. Furtwängler never performed Franke's music anyway (Franck, otoh!...)

"In the age of serialism" (or cashew, or whatever, none of these nomenclatures fit the facts) there has already been more and more diverse music to be had than in previous centuries, but have it your way

The Hans Franke Stiftung must have the answers - hence my email to them...

The Wölfl concerto is op.32, I goofed, not op.29 (but otherwise it's still the same piece, apparently.) (see RISM (https://opac.rism.info/search?id=991006948&View=rism), or the description of the cpo recording recorded in 2016 and reviewed by Musicweb 2 years ago, or... etc. It's impressive that Franke had access to the work, I guess, for all that it had been published in London sometime around 1806 and by André in 1808 or so (and between 1818 and 2020, not sure if it was published at all?) Then again, the Austrian National Library had copies of the early B&Härtel publication and others, so if he was visiting that or other libraries looking for interesting music to be inspired by ;), it might have crossed his attention. (The moreso if, contrafactually, they had open-stack policies like my university did, which was one reason I was in the Firestone Library basement skimming scores of people I'd never heard of instead of doing my math major homework. Don't have open stack policies, kid libraries.)

(also briefly re the Woelfl, there's a whole page about it here (https://special-collections.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/2020/04/21/woelfls-third-grand-concerto-for-the-piano-forte/) of some interest.)

Interestingly, https://hans-franke.de/ claims he attended the Leipzig Conservatory but the Das Königliche Konservatorium der Musik zu Leipzig 1893-1918 (http://mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00130759-9) which lists all the students who attended during those years does not list a Hans Franke. His bio claims he studied piano and composition under Carl Reinecke. Reinecke retired from the Conservatory in 1902 so Franke's attendance at the conservatory would have to have fallen within the period the book covers.

Has anyone from here messaged our colleague Oliver T yet?   

I have a strong feeling that much of Franke's 'back story' will prove to be fictitious. I wonder whether he actually wrote anything at all...?

I was thinking much the same thing, Alan. He certainly seems to have been something of a charlatan.

The jury is still out on whether the charlatan was Franke or the person who "discovered" and promoted him. 

I see the Hatto affair inspired a movie and two novels (one with the marvelous title, "Two-Part Invention").  Since this forum (particularly Alan) deserves credit for uncovering the hoax, would it be too much to ask that when the film comes out that my part be played by Hugh Jackman?

Just a suggestion...

:) I was thinking of the Hatto movie too, which I saw a few years ago. And Jackman started in musical theatre and can sing very well, so why not?

I can't claim any credit for uncovering the hoax; I just happened to be the first to make the connection.

As a matter of interest, can anyone locate the full score/Partitur of what we knew formerly as Hans Franke's Symphony No.6 in A minor (a-moll), Op.790, published by Vogt & Fritz?

And by the way - a rather unsavoury 'fact', if it's true: apparently the Symphony was dedicated to and first conducted by one Bruno C. Schestak (1903-1950), who was a Nazi Party member:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_C._Schestak  (in German)
https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=130068  (in English)
This may, of course, be another fabrication, but the fact that this is mentioned in the booklet accompanying the Amphion CD is still a matter of some concern.

It is also mentioned in a newspaper article of the time, so I think we must accept this as verified.

So: true, but unsavoury. Nothing like passing off someone else's work as one's own and then getting it performed by a card-carrying Nazi. Franke must have been quite a piece of work...

Since his daughter, Erika Prokop (1919-2008) established the Hans Franke Foundation (Stiftung), the next question would be how much she knew - and, of course, the same applies to publishers Elke und Gerhard Vogt (presumably of Vogt & Fritz) who helped her organise her father's estate and set up the Foundation.
https://hans-franke.de/hans-franke-stiftung/die-stifterin/

I have as yet had no reply to the query I sent them about the Symphony's provenance.

The Deutsches Komponistenarchiv (http://www.komponistenarchiv.de), which holds Franke's Nachlass, should also know something – or at least want to know.

I'm looking into going there the week after next, and have a look myself. Because let's be honest, at this point we have conclusive information about very little, as tantalizing as the few things we do know for certain might sound. We can't even be certain the work premiered as Franke's 6th Symphony in 1940 and the Kauffmann that functioned as its stand-in later, are the same.

This is true. And thanks!

I'm sure we're all waiting with bated breath, Ilja. The thrill of the chase, eh?

Oh definitely! It's only a little detour on the way to Berlin.

I note that Kauffmann was safely out of the way, a matter of years before the first performance of this Symphony

I've been trying to identify whether the three recorded chamber works, a Piano Quintet in E sharp minor and piano trios in D major and D minor, were also penned by someone else. Audio samples are here (https://www.muziekweb.nl/Link/CJX5985/Piano-trios-no-4-5?WorkID=U00000644936) for those without the CD. The Quintet is a poor thing, sounding like it was written in the first half of the 19th century with banal melodies strung together in an unimaginative way. The two trios seem to me to be of rather better quality and are altogether more substantial, still stylistically from the 1800s but maybe belonging to the third quarter. Perhaps the poverty of invention indicates that the Quintet is actually by Franke, whereas he exercised the same good judgement as he did in selecting Kauffmann's Symphony when choosing the trios to which he'd lay claim? Unless I've missed something, I've drawn a blank with works in the same keys at IMSLP but I wonder whether someone else with better knowledge of the repertoire than me can identify the trios in particular? 

Here's the MusicWeb review of the chamber music, if it's any help:
https://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2004/May04/Franke_trio_quintet.htm

Quote from: terry martyn on Wednesday 03 January 2024, 11:18I note that Kauffmann was safely out of the way, a matter of years before the first performance of this Symphony

That's true. Kauffmann died on 29th September 1934 and Franke dated his forgery 29th May 1936. So Franke waited precisely 20 (!) months before coming up with 'his' Symphony. How considerate of him... >:(

The "Fundings" page of the Hans Franke Foundation mentions three, not two,CDs. And the Hans Franke Chamber Music Competition. I don't think that former Congressman George Santos has been a judge, but perhaps his own resume should merit a future invitation.

And I love the fact that a main purpose of the Foundation is the "reappraisal of Hans Franke's musical legacy"

In the case of the piano trios and string quartets, some of them are in the possession of Bayern library and still rented by Vogt & Fritz (so Worldcat lists three entries- Bayern and two versions of DNB), including his clarinet concertino op.842 and his 9-plus symphonies; also quartet no.4 is at Northwestern University and U. Toronto/Keep@Downsview, as is quartet no.5 which is also at Columbia University NYC ("Op.793 in A major"). Piano trio no.4 is at Penn State, Rice U. Library, Northwestern, SDSU, and Indiana Bloomington, if anyone is anywhere near there in the USA. (And trio 5 is at Baylor, which I -may- actually be able to interlibrary-loan from... in which case I might have a whole trio of his to do some tune-comparing from. Hrm. Worth a try, why don't I...)
Many but not all these publications are from the early 2000s (but the Catalog of Copyright Entries at LoC lists a Männerquartett (work for 4 men's voices, yes...) by Franke published in 1936, so at least one work by or "by" him was published during his lifetime.)

Quote from: Mark Thomas on Wednesday 03 January 2024, 11:34I've been trying to identify whether the three recorded chamber works, a Piano Quintet in E sharp minor and piano trios in D major and D minor, were also penned by someone else. Audio samples are here (https://www.muziekweb.nl/Link/CJX5985/Piano-trios-no-4-5?WorkID=U00000644936) for those without the CD. The Quintet is a poor thing, sounding like it was written in the first half of the 19th century with banal melodies strung together in an unimaginative way. The two trios seem to me to be of rather better quality and are altogether more substantial, still stylistically from the 1800s but maybe belonging to the third quarter. Perhaps the poverty of invention indicates that the Quintet is actually by Franke, whereas he exercised the same good judgement as he did in selecting Kauffmann's Symphony when choosing the trios to which he'd lay claim? Unless I've missed something, I've drawn a blank with works in the same keys at IMSLP but I wonder whether someone else with better knowledge of the repertoire than me can identify the trios in particular? 

I think I have identified the D major Trio - it seems that it's by Wilhelm Hill - more information here (https://w.editionsilvertrust.com/hill-w-piano-trio1.htm).

Eric: could you expand on what you've found about the symphonies, please?

Ilja's discovery about the authorship of the Trio prompts me to wonder whether the Forum's work on "reappraisal" qualifies it for  funding from the Franke Foundation. We are,after all, starting to contribute significantly to its main purpose.

Not sure if this is what you meant, but judging from Worldcat which may have imperfect and incomplete information, at least the following symphonies by/"by" Franke were or are available for orchestral rental by Musikverlag Vogt Fritz, Ettlingen:
Sinfonie Nr. 4 E-Dur, op. 778 für Orchester (1924) = Frühling im Tal der Müglitz (https://search.worldcat.org/title/725255962)
Sinfonie Nr. 5 E-Dur, op. 785 für Orchester (1936) = Deutscher Wald (https://search.worldcat.org/title/725256010)
Sinfonie Nr. 6 a-moll, op. 790 für Orchester (1936) (https://search.worldcat.org/title/725255998)
Sinfonie Nr. 8 A-Dur, op. 797 für Orchester (1944) (https://search.worldcat.org/title/725256026)
Sinfonie Nr. 9 F-Dur, op. 798 für Orchester (1943) (https://search.worldcat.org/title/725256036).

I went ahead and put in an ILL request for the D major piano trio @ Baylor. Since it has been identified as being Hill's trio, I will cancel it. (Hill's music does interest me, and I hope a release of his music under his own name will ensue one-of-these-days, but!)

QuoteI think I have identified the D major Trio - it seems that it's by Wilhelm Hill

I too can confirm - although I haven't listened to the whole thing - that Franke's Piano Trio No.5 in D major, Op.801, is in fact the Piano Trio in D major, Op.12 (1863) by Wilhelm Hill (1838-1902). I happen to have this Melisma CD: https://www.recordsinternational.com/cd.php?cd=01L006

So, I think we can expect more forgeries, if only we can identify them.

Well done, Ilja!

the Neue Zeitschrift does list a performance, in Teplitz-Schonau on 12 January 1942, of a symphony no.4 in E with that subtitle by or "by" Franke, fwiw.

QuoteSinfonie Nr. 4 E-Dur, op. 778 für Orchester (1924) = Frühling im Tal der Müglitz
Sinfonie Nr. 5 E-Dur, op. 785 für Orchester (1936) = Deutscher Wald
Sinfonie Nr. 6 a-moll, op. 790 für Orchester (1936)
Sinfonie Nr. 8 A-Dur, op. 797 für Orchester (1944)
Sinfonie Nr. 9 F-Dur, op. 798 für Orchester (1943)

Thanks, Eric. So, we have....

(a) two apparently nature-related symphonies in E major (Franke nos. 4 and 5)
(b) the Symphony in A minor (a-moll) (Franke no.6), now identified as by Fritz Kauffmann
(c) a Symphony in A major (Franke number eight)
(d) a Symphony in F major (Franke no.9)

Possible candidates, anyone? - see below:
List of symphonies in...
A major:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_symphonies_in_A_major
E major:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_symphonies_in_E_major
F major:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_symphonies_in_F_major

The D minor Trio may be more difficult to trace. The tempo indication "Andante elegioso" is not one I can find anywhere else and it would stand out as somewhat doubtful Italian to my knowledge ("Andante elegiaco" would be correct).

Thinking about this case, it may be the most flagrant example of musical plagiarism (in its own way worse than the Hatto case) I've come across, and one that would probably have gone unnoticed had it not been for the explosion of recordings of hitherto unplayed music, the easy access to them via the internet, and our community of erudites.

Perhaps we shouldn't be too self-congratulatory, though. The early contributions to this thread make for slightly uncomfortable reading now that the whole sordid picture is becoming clear. There were some definite red flags all along, most of all the total lack of musical consistency and individuality in Franke's "work". I remember experiencing the combination of symphony and piano concerto as decidedly odd, for instance, but I have to confess also that it didn't cause me to question their authorship. Compare that to Thomas Stamm-Kuhlmann, to take an example of a backward-looking composer many of us will be familiar with. His works share an individual style and are also identifiable as 20th-century music despite their romantic roots.

Note: while the gavotte for violin and piano that's on YouTube could have had its key changed and will be harder to identify, if there's anyone here who doesn't know this, it's harder to just change the key of an orchestral work (careless transposition breaks things like instrumental ranges, open-string effects, for starters.) So I agree with the unspoken premise that the original works probably have the same key.

elegioso- also, maybe, religioso painfully misspelled?
Don't know..

Quote from: Alan Howe on Wednesday 03 January 2024, 18:46Thanks, Eric. So, we have....
(a) two apparently nature-related symphonies in E major (Franke nos. 4 and 5)
(b) the Symphony in A minor (a-moll) (Franke no.6), now identified as by Fritz Kauffmann
(c) a Symphony in A major (Franke number eight)
(d) a Symphony in F major (Franke no.9)
Possible candidates, anyone? - see below:
List of symphonies in...
A major:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_symphonies_in_A_major
E major:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_symphonies_in_E_major
F major:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_symphonies_in_F_major

It seems to me that there are certain rules for "a Franke":

1. Access - The work has to be accessible in German libraries or from German publishers. That limits it to mostly German music, although not exclusively.
2. Obscurity - The work has to be from a mostly forgotten composer. Even Fuchs would probably be too risky. Kauffmann was ideal: a regional musician with few students, who wrote only a single symphony.
3. Conservatism - Franke appears to have avoided more forward-looking fare. Preferably solidly German-sounding music, too (remember we're mostly operating in the Nazi years)

For the E major symphonies, that would exclude Raff (!), Fuchs, or Weigl for various reasons. Remaining candidates would be people like Mayer, Lachner, or Rott (!). A possible candidate for me is Bischoff's first symphony, which exudes the proper "forest" sphere, written by a somewhat unknown composer who died in 1936.

I'd probably rule our Bischoff as being too late - and too long (65 mins):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE9cVXbmwhM

The opening's virtually a crib of Richard Strauss' style. But who knows?

Quote from: Ilja on Wednesday 03 January 2024, 17:52I think I have identified the D major Trio - it seems that it's by Wilhelm Hill - more information here (https://w.editionsilvertrust.com/hill-w-piano-trio1.htm).

Oh, well done Ilja! I too have the Wilhelm Hill CD, but clearly my musical memory isn't in same league as yours and for some reason Hill's trios don't show up when one searches IMSLP.

For the A major, I'd suggest either Eduard Franck or Jadassohn (No.2).
For F major, perhaps Gade (No.7), Kalliwoda (No,6), Küffner or Wüerst.

How on earth we would find out, though, is an open question, especially if we had no recordings - or computer realisations.

Speaking personally, I don't feel too guilty about failing to question the provenance of these pieces. On the positive side, we did in fact assign the symphony to the correct decade:

QuoteIt could easily have been written in, say, the 1880s

so at least we got the style right.

On the other hand, lessons have to be learned. The fact that, for instance, we might know a (genuine) composer who was extremely prolific (e.g. Röntgen) doesn't necessarily mean that another composer's extensive catalogue should be accepted as comparable. I suppose we must hope that this particular example of industrial-scale plagiarism is a one-off...

Quote from: Mark Thomas on Wednesday 03 January 2024, 19:37

Quote from: Ilja on Wednesday 03 January 2024, 17:52I think I have identified the D major Trio - it seems that it's by Wilhelm Hill - more information here (https://w.editionsilvertrust.com/hill-w-piano-trio1.htm).

Oh, well done Ilja! I too have the Wilhelm Hill CD, but clearly my musical memory isn't in same league as yours.

The upshot is that we now have a recording of the Hill Trio that is rather better than the one we had previously.

Yes, I noticed that too. How ironic.

I wonder if Erika Prokop was the perpetrator?  So fascinating!  And now that the Hill has been identified, it's only a matter of time before the true identity of the others is uncovered.  Nevertheless, it is sobering to think that nearly 800 fraudulent works -- a life time's labor in deception, dishonesty, and plagiarism -- perished in the flames of Dresden.  Imagine the work cut out for us had they survived?

Wanted to add two notes.  The website for Edition49 (https://www.edition49shop.de/) has a few perusal scores of Franke's scores published by Vogt & Fritz.  Search for Hans Franke. The scores available are the Quartetto eufonico per quattro sonatori Op.841, Kleine Suite für Streichorchester Op.863, and Drei konzertante Stücke.  I also note that among his Drei Lieder is Der Spielmann Op.261 for voice, violin, and piano.  Eugen Hildach (1849-1924) published a song for voice and piano also entitled Der Spielmann as his Op.15 No.1 in 1893.  In 1931 a version was published by Heinrichshofen's Verlag that included a violin solo.

re the Hill: and another kind of information here (https://imslp.org/wiki/Piano_Trio_No.1,_Op.12_(Hill,_Wilhelm)) (score and parts.)

There is also a 106 page catalog of...well, I almost wrote "his works"...of his manuscripts, with musical examples:

https://www.abebooks.fr/Hans-Franke-Bestandsverzeichnis-erhaltenen-Werke-Klavierausz%C3%BCge/30431502687/bd

btw the Wolfl concerto, unpublished in years, suggests he would have had a good musicologist in him had he stuck to the good.

Quote from: John Boyer on Thursday 04 January 2024, 02:23Nevertheless, it is sobering to think that nearly 800 fraudulent works -- a life time's labor in deception, dishonesty, and plagiarism -- perished in the flames of Dresden. 

This may, of course, be a fabrication. To find and claim as one's own 90-odd compositions is one thing, but to do the same with another 800 would seem to be stretching credulity. My hunch is that the Dresden fire-bombing was a convenient (although horrific) opportunity to pull the wool over our eyes.
 

In the flurry of posts yesterday, I mentioned that the Franke Foundation had funded three CDs. Two of them, the chamber music and the Symphony No 6, we know about. What on earth would be the third one?

I tend to agree with Alan that the destruction of Dresden probably enabled Franke to pose as a composer of Czerny-like proportions.

I am beginning to think that this is really important work we are doing here, in attempting to expose a plagiarist and in rehabilitating the reputation of a composer (Kauffmann) who is well above the middle rank,if this symphony is anything to go by. Do we need, or could we in the future need, journalistic or other media help?

Quote from: John Boyer on Thursday 04 January 2024, 02:43There is also a 106 page catalog of...well, I almost wrote "his works"...of his manuscripts, with musical examples:

https://www.abebooks.fr/Hans-Franke-Bestandsverzeichnis-erhaltenen-Werke-Klavierausz%C3%BCge/30431502687/bd

I've just ordered the book (albeit from another source, since a 25-45 working days in the mail didn't sound particularly appealing). I should have it somewhere next week, perhaps earlier, and will scan it for further perusal. Perhaps more alarming is that this is apparently a thesis, perhaps even an Inauguraldissertation (the first stage of a German academic promotion cycle, equivalent to a Ph.D. in Anglo-Saxon countries, but typically somewhat more lightweight), which might not bode well for the candidate. Not much wrong if it was in library or archival studies, but musicology?... ouch. We'll see.

Interestingly, there's also this image in the book description on AbeBooks:

(https://pictures.abebooks.com/inventory/30431502687.jpg)
See top right. I'm not the greatest sight-reader in the world so I could be wrong (and am en route now so can't check), but at first glance it looks like a bit from the opening to Ernst Boehe's Odysseus Heimkehr, the final movement of his massive poem/symphony/thing Aus Odysseus' Fahrten, Op. 6 from 1903.

Quote from: Alan Howe on Thursday 04 January 2024, 08:53

Quote from: John Boyer on Thursday 04 January 2024, 02:23Nevertheless, it is sobering to think that nearly 800 fraudulent works -- a life time's labor in deception, dishonesty, and plagiarism -- perished in the flames of Dresden.

This may, of course, be a fabrication. To find and claim as one's own 90-odd compositions is one thing, but to do the same with another 800 would seem to be stretching credulity. My hunch is that the Dresden fire-bombing was a convenient (although horrific) opportunity to pull the wool over our eyes.
 

I fully agree. Also, there's the number itself which taken together with everything else suggests that this is something a competent psychologist might also have an opinion about. I seem to remember another case of a composer with an insanely large body of mostly non-existent works who suffered from a combination of delusions of grandeur and depression, but I can't find it right now.

By the way, I just emailed Oliver Triendl. Curious what he has to say.

Terry Martyn- I think I saw mention of a second disc of chamber music available, but I'm not sure.

There's a CD containing a String Quartet (https://hans-franke.de/werkverzeichnis/kammermusik/), Eric, coupled with works by Dvorak, Witte, and Kodaly.

That must be the third CD the Franke Foundation refers to on its "Funding" Page.  I wonder who composed that String Quartet?

Quote from: terry martyn on Thursday 04 January 2024, 11:01I tend to agree with Alan that the destruction of Dresden probably enabled Franke to pose as a composer of Czerny-like proportions.

I am beginning to think that this is really important work we are doing here, in attempting to expose a plagiarist and in rehabilitating the reputation of a composer (Kauffmann) who is well above the middle rank,if this symphony is anything to go by. Do we need, or could we in the future need, journalistic or other media help?

In fact, I was contemplating writing something myself. However, since I'm also in the death throes of my book on Berlin railway stations (out in the Fall) and while milking this for every bit of procrastination I can get out of it (as you might have noticed) the timing is not perfect. However, I have some contacts in German newspapers that could be useful, should the need arise.

Quote from: terry martyn on Thursday 04 January 2024, 11:01I tend to agree with Alan that the destruction of Dresden probably enabled Franke to pose as a composer of Czerny-like proportions.

Alan and Terry are, of course, quite right. To hand-copy the better part of 1000 compositions would be a monumental undertaking in itself, never mind actually composing them.  To even make the claim that one has almost matched Czerny in productivity is to invite scrutiny and skepticism. Why would anyone hoping to perpetrate a fraud make a claim so patently absurd?

To plagiarize the works that have been identified so far indicates dishonesty, but to claim to have done it 800 more times suggests a truly unbalanced mind.

Returning to the issue of whether we should have been more wary, not to say downright suspicious of Franke's claims in the first place, we certainly wouldn't have known where to start looking with regard to the true provenance of the Symphony. It wasn't until Martin posted his work on Kauffmann's Symphony that we realised there was in fact an issue involving plagiarism on Franke's part. Looking back, we might well have had more luck uncovering the truth about the Piano Trio in D and the Piano Concerto - but, frankly, the reality was that they just weren't interesting enough to pique anyone's interest. Having listened to it, I had simply dismissed the PC as being of no consequence (although that should have been a red flag, as Ilja has pointed out).

So: it was the quality of Kauffmann's Symphony wot did it!! And Martin's superlative work in producing such a good computer realisation that we recognised it straight away!

If Franke plagiarised later composers such as Boehe, we would dealing with a composer whose stylistic development ranged from proto-romantic to post-Wagnerian. We did in fact have a brief flurry of interest in the claims of another composer who, it turned out, was a complete fiction. Does anyone remember the case of one Gottfried Eschenbach (1842-1920)?>>
https://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php?topic=5176.0
http://eschenbach.awardspace.biz/index.html

Well, the piano concerto, being by Wölfl- a composer of interest to only a few of us here, and not a superb one (though one capable of originality- I rather enjoy his sonata for cello, piano and percussion, written long before Bartók) - was unlikely to ring bells especially given that relatively few of us had access to the CD.

A (terrible) thought: is it possible that either Raff's 3rd Symphony (in F, im Walde) or 5th Symphony (in E, Lenore) was plagiarised by Franke? Would they have been too well known for Franke to have considered choosing them?

I don't know whether Mark T. can give us an idea of whether these two symphonies were still being performed in, say, Germany or Austria between 1900 and 1940? Or had they gone completely out of fashion by the beginning of the 20th century? Eric has already supplied with some information in the thread on early 20th century Raff performances:
https://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php/topic,9310.0.html

Yes, you can easily imagine how Lenore could double as a "Forest" symphony, but I still think that Raff might've been a tad too risky to plagiarize - even if circumspection doesn't appear to have been Franke's most prominent trait.

The most well-known movement by Raff would probably have been the March from Lenore; why not simply leave it out?

QuoteI'm not the greatest sight-reader in the world so I could be wrong (and am en route now so can't check), but at first glance it looks like a bit from the opening to Ernst Boehe's Odysseus Heimkehr, the final movement of his massive poem/symphony/thing Aus Odysseus' Fahrten, Op. 6 from 1903.

Well, here's the Boehe, for comparison purposes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqLMqfDufq4

Quote from: Alan Howe on Thursday 04 January 2024, 14:48I don't know whether Mark T. can give us an idea of whether these two symphonies were still being performed in, say, Germany or Austria between 1900 and 1940? Or had they gone completely out of fashion by the beginning of the 20th century?

I can't immediately give chapter and verse on performances in Germany then, but both works were certainly still performed with reasonable frequency up to WWI so Franke, who was in his 30s by then, would have been familiar with them, probably enough so to see the dangers of claimimg either as his own work when there were plenty of other, more obscure, forest/woods-themed symphonies penned in the romantic era, so strong did the subject feature in German culture.

Performances of Raff between 1900 and 1922 at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig included the one of his 3rd symphony I mentioned at the top of this thread (Lohse, 1922 January 12), also his 2nd violin concerto in 1916, and La fée d'amour on March 8 1900 (the latter two conducted by Nikisch). I don't know about Magdeburg, where Franke resided, but I can have a look at contemporary issues of NZM for a bit and see if anything's mentioned.

Quote from: Ilja on Wednesday 03 January 2024, 19:05The D minor Trio may be more difficult to trace. The tempo indication "Andante elegioso" is not one I can find anywhere else and it would stand out as somewhat doubtful Italian to my knowledge ("Andante elegiaco" would be correct).

It might be a typo for Andante religioso of course, which is quite a common designation. That said, despite a naggingly familiar start to the first movement, I can't identify it even after listening to the opening bars of every piano trio recording I have, whether in D minor or not, A search of D minor trios at IMSLP has also drawn a blank.

RISM (https://opac.rism.info/metaopac/start.do?View=rism&SearchType=2&Language=en)  has a sometimes useful search feature too, with a keyboard- type in the first few notes, specify the conjectured instrumentation using their code, and see if there are any matches in their database...

Quote from: eschiss1 on Thursday 04 January 2024, 17:32Performances of Raff between 1900 and 1922 at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig included the one of his 3rd symphony I mentioned at the top of this thread (Lohse, 1922 January 12), also his 2nd violin concerto in 1916, and La fée d'amour on March 8 1900 (the latter two conducted by Nikisch). I don't know about Magdeburg, where Franke resided, but I can have a look at contemporary issues of NZM for a bit and see if anything's mentioned.

I think it was Kauffmann who lived in Magdeburg; Franke was mainly active in Saxony and just across the Bohemian border, in Teplitz (today Teplice). Interestingly, the Franke Stiftung biography (FWIW) claims he studied conducting with Nikisch, so it's likely he was at least familiar with Raff.

I can't find any reference to Franke being in Magdeburg.

sorry, my mistake!

When searching for originals of chamber works, unlike large orchestral works, I'm not sure the key necessarily has to be the same- consider Rheinberger's own transcription of his E minor violin sonata to a E-flat minor clarinet sonata. The original source of the trio might not even always be a piano trio- might be a wind work, e.g. I wish IMSLP's melody search weren't so absolutely buggy. RISM's isn't very useful, but it's worth trying.

That's very helpful, Eric. Thanks.

Quote from: Ilja on Wednesday 03 January 2024, 19:05Thomas Stamm-Kuhlmann,

I nearly didn't question this, but I'm assuming you meant Thomas Schmidt-Kowalski.

Quote from: Alan Howe on Thursday 04 January 2024, 21:11

Quote from: Ilja on Wednesday 03 January 2024, 19:05Thomas Stamm-Kuhlmann,

I nearly didn't question this, but I'm assuming you meant Thomas Schmidt-Kowalski.

Oopsie. Yes, of course. Stamm-Kuhlmann is an historian who wrote the biography of the Prussian king Frederick William III ("The most boring man to live in interesting times") that I used for my Master's thesis somewhere around the time of the Reformation.

And rest assured, this exhausts my knowledge of double-barrelled German Thomases.

It matters not.

btw re Raff, Weingartner conducted the 3rd in March 1924 with the Vienna Philharmonic- I wish that had been broadcast/recorded/something.

In Vienna, I assume?

On reflection, I think the chances are that Franke didn't dare choose any scores by Raff. Memories of his music would have been too recent and too widespread - and conductors are likely at least to have known about his music.

Having emailed Vogt & Fritz asking them whether they knew that Franke's 6th Symphony was in fact identical to the A minor Symphony by Fritz Kauffmann, I have had the following holding reply in English:

Dear Mr. Howe,

This seems to be very interesting, indeed. We will check it and keep you informed.

With best regards

Elke Tober-Vogt

____________________________
Vogt & Fritz Sound
Amtsgericht Schweinfurt HRA 954,
Inh. Elke Tober-Vogt (e.K.)
Ust-IdNr. DE 133874751
Friedrich-Stein-Str. 10
D-97421 Schweinfurt
 
Tel. 09721 541 09 00
vogtfritz@t-online.de
www.vogtundfritzsound.de

Do friends think I should also make reference to the Piano Trio in D and the Piano Concerto?

Certainly you should. They bolster the case against Franke and their origin isn't in doubt.

I have done as you suggest, Mark.

I'm really hoping they genuinely didn't know about this...

I'm hoping they don't sue all current publishers (those who make available, not literally publishers; IMSLP is an obvious target) of e.g. Hill's trio claiming that _we've_ stolen Franke's work instead. This move would not be unprecedented.

Why should they?   None of us are making any allegations against them

If there's any stealing involved in this whole sorry saga, I think we all know who the perpetrator really was. At this stage, unless proven otherwise, we should simply assume that Vogt & Fritz have been victims of the fraud. They cannot possibly claim ownership of any of the music proven to have been written by, for example, Woelfl, Hill or Kauffmann as we have clear documentary evidence to the contrary, both in terms of recordings and original scores.

Quite so,Alan.   

What Vogt & Fritz should do, of course, is halt all sales of scores and CDs of music purportedly by Franke pending a thorough investigation into the facts of the case.

By the way, I've spent some time today going through the Edition Silvertrust website in search of the D minor Trio and the F# minor Piano Quartet, and drawn a blank. So it's either even more obscure than we think (but something about the Trio sounds familiar to me, as it does to Mark) or Franke changed things around for a bit. However, the pattern sofar indicates that he was unwilling (or unable?) to change much apart from swapping some movements around, so my hunch is that he probably changed very little in the works he plagiarized.

By the way, has anyone been able to check on the possible Boehe link?

Do we really have sufficient evidence from Franke's score to be able check out the Boehe link?

By the way, the CD of the Symphony & Piano Concerto is still on sale from the publisher:
https://vogtundfritzsound.de/musikcd/klassik/hans-franke/

Buy one while you still can...

There's one thing that bothers me about Christian Hammer's response:  "In fact, it is not news that Hans Franke drew on the work of other composers."

He writes this as if concerns of plagiarism were already known and widely discussed -- this, about a hitherto unknown composer, recently discovered, whose works have not been widely discussed.  The very existence of Hans Franke and his alleged body of work was news, never mind the possibility of plagiarism.  Consider the following exchange:

--
John: I have discovered a hitherto unknown manuscript by equally unknown contemporary of Goethe and have posted it to my website. 

Paul: I just finished reviewing your post and have noticed troubling anachronisms in chapters 2 and 3.

John: The question of authenticity in those chapters is hardly news.  It's well documented. 
--

Hmmm...
 

Yes, I'd forgotten about that. It's not hard to imagine someone identifying the Piano Concerto as being by Woelfl and the Piano Trio in D as being by Wilhelm Hill, but the Kauffmann Symphony had never been recorded. It sounds as though someone must have raised a red flag at some point, but in respect of which of Franke's claimed compositions is not clear.

Ilja told us that Christian Hammer also said this:
<<There was probably a similar case years before the CD recording with the Anhaltische Philharmonie Dessau under Golo Berg, who were also supposed to record a symphony by Hans Franke. It just came out beforehand that it was in no way a composition by him.>>

I wonder whether an email to conductor Golo Berg would reveal which (fake) symphony by Franke was presented to him for recording and who it was actually by?

I have just finished emailing Golo Berg.

Yes,that needed to be followed up. The answer could be pretty illuminating, especially if it turned out to be that "Forest" Symphony.

Another loose end is the true composer of the String Quartet  No 4 in E minor op 780, which was on that third CD funded by the Franke Foundation.

No reply yet. I'll keep you informed.

And the use of the expression "drew on" reminds me of the very funny line, in a book review in the American magazine "The Nation" some decades back, that [it's like saying] (details slightly changed, I don't have the article in front of me anymore) 'there was an hommage at 15th and 4th last night.'

We don't know what conductor Christian Hammer actually said - Ilja kindly translated it for us as 'drew on'.

Ah, sorry!

I'm sure he'll enlighten us. I'm equally sure that, whether in German or English, it's a euphemism for 'copied'!

Literally, Hammer wrote:

QuoteIn der Tat ist es nicht neu,  dass sich Hans Franke am Schaffen anderer Komponisten bedient hat.

A more accurate translation than the one I gave earlier would probably be "It is no news, that Hans Franke helped himself to the works of other composers".

That's helpful, Ilja. Thank you.

I'd probably translate it as: "In fact it's not news that Hans Franke helped himself to other composers' works."

So: Christian Hammer is saying that it was known that Franke was a plagiarist. I assume he knew about this because the plan for Golo Berg to record a work attributed to Franke was found to be by someone else. I also assume that this happened after Herr Hammer made the recording of the A minor Symphony for Vogt & Fritz/Amphion, otherwise he wouldn't have gone ahead with that particular project.

The question, therefore, is why this sorry tale has not been made properly public. To be specific, why are scores still being sold and CDs still being marketed as featuring music by Hans Franke?

Quote from: Alan Howe on Saturday 06 January 2024, 22:22I'd probably translate it as: "In fact it's not news that Hans Franke helped himself to other composers' works."

Well, I would have translated it as, "Not news in fact it is that to other composers' works Hans Franke to himself helped."

Gives it a bit more Teutonic flavor, eh?  But that's just me.  Or rather, to me that just is.

Quote from: Alan Howe on Saturday 06 January 2024, 22:22The question, therefore, is why this sorry tale has not been made properly public. To be specific, why are scores still being sold and CDs still being marketed as featuring music by Hans Franke?

A charitable interpretation might be that, although the passing off of the "Golo Berg" symphony was known about by the publishers and so it wasn't recorded, that wasn't true of the Kauffmann, Woelfl and Hill works and so they were recorded and published as by Franke. Even that seems naive at best, though. The first episode really should have set alarm bells ringing and, especially as they had been recorded, the Concerto and Trio's true identities could have been discovered with a little bit of effort. Now, of course, the scores and recordings really must be withdrawn and re-attributed.

I have as yet had no reply from Golo Berg - he's probably very busy.

However, of more concern is the silence from Vogt & Fritz. Remember - this was their one-line reply (in English):

<<This seems to be very interesting, indeed. We will check it and keep you informed.>>

So, will they keep us informed? Surely they must know at least something already, following the incident with Golo Berg?

The pity is that we have now got a decently-produced CD with a fine performance of the Kauffmann and a bonus of the Woelfl Third Piano Concerto in a far better (to my ears) interpretation than the counterpart on the cpo label. And these performances deserve to be heard, and bought, and not suppressed. As Jimmy Durante once said "What a dilemnia!".

Quote from: Alan Howe on Sunday 07 January 2024, 09:39I have as yet had no reply from Golo Berg - he's probably very busy.

However, of more concern is the silence from Vogt & Fritz. Remember - this was their one-line reply (in English):

<<This seems to be very interesting, indeed. We will check it and keep you informed.>>

So, will they keep us informed? Surely they must know at least something already, following the incident with Golo Berg?

No reply yet from Triendl, either. But let's remember it's the week after New Year's, when people tend to recuperate from that ordeal and Christmas.

Quite so.

Question: so, how long do we wait before smelling a rat (particularly as regards Vogt & Fritz)?

I would check on the common factors between the publishers and the Hans Franke Foundation,Alan.

Yes, I'm aware of that link. It all depends on who knew what and when.

One thing's certain, though: the fact that Franke was a plagiarist was known before we knew. And that's the part that requires investigation. At least two conductors knew before us - and maybe a pianist too, if he was kept in the loop.

I find the apparent  lack of public disclosure, and the lack of curiosity amongst the musical press and media, to be a little disheartening. It was as long ago as 27th April 2008 that the Classical Music Guide described Franke's music as "what a find",by way of one example.

I would imagine that the music plagiarised by Franke was too obscure to cause much of a stir. And maybe no-one's actually bothered to research exactly which works he purloined anyway. Maybe 'his' scores have been quietly disposed of, leaving no evidence behind. Maybe all we actually have left is a catalogue of works - because, if we don't even have musical incipits/excerpts, it's going to be very hard to establish the facts.

Does anyone know exactly who Gabriele Schaller is - i.e. the author of the inventory/catalogue of Franke's claimed compositions?

As I have hinted at before, I still believe that the plagiarist is not Franke, but someone at the foundation or the publisher.  The publisher's unsurprised response reminds me of William Barrington-Coupe's equally mild bewilderment when he was first questioned on the Hatto fraud. 

Has anyone seen facsimiles of the Franke manuscripts?  Or did the foundation/publisher present the performers only with the newly engraved editions?  Since the engravings are new, who was the editor who closely examined the manuscripts to resolve errors?

Finally, what would be the motivation for this?  (And again, I think Franke is innocent, that the hoax has been perpetrated by his descendants or advocates.)   With Hatto/Barrington-Coupe, the motive was clearer: the attainment of recognition that was felt to be unjustifiably denied.  Here it is less clear.  It can't be money or fame, because forgotten romantic music makes no one rich, and classical music in general goes unnoticed by 98% of the population. 

You may well be right, John. This is what conductor Christian Hammer told Ilja:

<<I made the recording at the invitation of the publishing house Vogt & Fritz. The score that was made available to me is a handwritten one with 4 entries from performances, 2 of which were in the Berlin Philharmonie (1941 + 1942) supposedly under Wilhelm Furtwängler.>>

This looks as though it was not only plagiarism, but also a deliberate fabrication as we can't find any evidence of performances under Furtwängler. So - a plagiarised score with the two inner movements swapped round and fake entries indicating performances in Berlin under Furtwängler in the early war years which never took place.

So, as John wonders - was this the work of Franke or certain later actors?

1: Or as long as 2004 that Musicweb posted a (edit: rather negative, but innocent) review of the piano quintet and piano trios (https://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2004/May04/Franke_trio_quintet.htm) disc.

2: Unless Furtwängler's performance history for those years as set down, thanks to the TAHRA organization iirc, at furtwangler.fr for example is incomplete, agreed. It's possible there are known blank spots in the performance record but that would itself almost certainly be a well-known fact and worth looking up. I suspect not, mind?

Anyone mind if I put a comment in the discussion section of either the German (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Franke_(Komponist)) or Catalan (https://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Franke_(compositor)) Wikipedia page of Hans Franke about this matter, as it relates to the composer's output? Or should I hold off?

(In English, I fear, but.)

There's already a comment in the discussion section that goes "When you listen to Hans Franke's Piano Concerto in F Major, you can't believe - perhaps with the exception of the humorous final movement - that this is a work of the 20th century."

Edit: is Wölfl's finale unusually playful, even premonitorily modern, or did Franke edit it?

from earlier in the thread: "for some reason Hill's trios don't show up when one searches IMSLP".

If you're searching for a trio for piano, violin, and cello in D major-

Category:Trios (https://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Trios) starting with the supercategory trios -

then "restrict to" violin, cello and piano (https://imslp.org/wiki/Special:CategoryWalker/Trios**For_violin,_cello,_piano/) -

then "show pages" for works in "D major" (https://imslp.org/index.php?title=Category:Trios&intersect=For_violin%2C_cello%2C_piano%2A%2AD_major&transclude=Template:Catintro) - there are 70 trios in D for piano, violin and cello on the site - the Hill no.1 is no.15 under "P" (for piano, not Hill). (Between the trio op.10 (published 1865) of Louis Lee (1819-96) and the trio op.2 by Aurora.borealis , a trio by a living composer.)

Eric has reminded me that the Signum recording of the Piano Trio etc was back around 2004, if not slightly earlier, ie whilst Franke's daughter was still alive. Mistakenly,I thought that it was one of the three CDs funded by the Franke Foundation.

Which means that one of the three was the Kauffmann/Woelfl, another one contained the String Quartet No 4, but the third contained works performed by the South Bohemian Chamber Orchestra. I haven't researched what works were on that  disc, but I believe it was issued before the Symphony was recorded.

Four CDs ,it seems in total, not three

There is such a stark contrast in quality between the two piano trios on the chamber music CD (one of which is by Hill) and the terminally vapid Piano Quintet No.3, that one does wonder whether the latter might a genuine work by Franke; "Written in an air raid shelter" maybe gives it an air of authenticity? Clearly someone (maybe him, perhaps his daughter, the custodian of his legacy), wanting to enhance his reputation, started down the path of passing off obscure or forgotten works of much higher quality than Franke himself could create to bolster his posthumous reputation but maybe couldn't resist including a genuine work or two of his amongst the published/recorded ones?

I wouldn't be too quick to condemn the publishers. We know only too well here how ignorant so many music "professionals" are of the huge legacy of nowadays unknown romantic 19th century music and also how the prospect of financial sponsorship can make recordings and score publication happen.

Quote from: terry martyn on Sunday 07 January 2024, 13:00I would check on the common factors between the publishers and the Hans Franke Foundation,Alan.

The contact given on the Hans-Franke.de website is Elke Tober-Vogt, who is also the "Vogt" in Vogt & Fritz. So there's a fair bit of overlap there.

But at the risk of sounding repetitive, I have to emphasize that we have simply too little information at this point to make a convincing accusation against anyone - or to proclaim anyone's innocence, for that matter. Hopefully a perusal through the catalogue and some reactions from the performers involved will give us more to go on.

The initial reply I received was from Elke Tober-Vogt. No follow-up response as yet...

Small (or Little)Suite for String Orchestra (op. 863) on that South Bohemian Chamber Orchestra CD.   Now the only "Little Suite" I know is the  Carl Nielsen....

Quote from: terry martyn on Sunday 07 January 2024, 17:15Small (or Little)Suite for String Orchestra (op. 863) on that South Bohemian Chamber Orchestra CD.  Now the only "Little Suite" I know is the  Carl Nielsen....

And of course the Petite Suites by Debussy and Roger-Ducasse, Dubois' Suite Miniature, and Volkmar Andreae's Kleine Suite.

IMSLP has several Little suites for strings from the right timeframe, including an interesting-looking Kleine suite, Op.38 published by Lienau in 1884 by Kassmayer... any details on Franke's?... (Kassmayer's is in 3 movements, Allegro, Andantino, Praeludium und Fuge (Allegro).)

(Ah ok, from the seller's page, the Franke has 3 tracks: Allegro appassionato, Andante sostenuto, Presto giocoso, with sound samples. And I remember looking at the perusal score of this work at Edition49, now I think of it.)

also, (sorry) I wonder if the work was originally titled something else like Serenade (or ... or ...) and retitled Suite by - Franke or whoever repurposed it when it was published in the 21st century ... the opening at least sounds like something familiar from an Idyll or Serenade or something, CDC CCC CDC CCC :)

Quote from: terry martyn on Sunday 07 January 2024, 17:15Small (or Little)Suite for String Orchestra (op. 863) on that South Bohemian Chamber Orchestra CD.  Now the only "Little Suite" I know is the  Carl Nielsen....

My post (#95) in this thread had a link to the publisher's website and noted that several of Franke's scores are available there as perusal pdfs including Kleine Suite für Streichorchester Op.863.

This is the link to the scores:
https://www.edition49shop.de/verlage/vogt-fritz/?p=1&o=1&n=12&f=6752

And follow this link to the Kleine Suite:
https://www.edition49.de/pdf/vf/VF_1520_Probepartitur.pdf

FWIW I sent an email yesterday to Vogt & Fritz asking how I could get hold of a copy of the Franke CD. Today a brief reply from Elke Tobert-Vogt to say that they do not send outside Germany and also that the CD was no longer available ('vergriffen').

I am always suspicious of multi-excuses.   Of course, they send out of Germany.  That's how I got mine ,delivered to Spain, last March.

I assumed that was how you got your copy – but I decided to ask in all innocence if it was at all possible to order from outside Germany because I really wanted a copy of that CD. That it is now apparently deleted is probably  an indication that something is going on behind the scenes...

Well, I've now had this reply from the publisher:

uns ist nichts Derartiges bekannt – wie sind Sie denn auf die entsprechenden Informationen gestoßen? Und haben Sie vielleicht Notenbeispiele oder zumindest Incipits? Das wäre interessant. Bei einer weiteren Sinfonie von Franke hat sich übrigens genau dasselbe herausgestellt. Eine wissenschaftliche Arbeit vom Anfang unseres Jahrhunderts zweifelt zudem an der Vielzahl seiner Werke.

Translated:

We don't know anything about this - how did you come by the relevant information? And do you perhaps have any examples from scores or at least incipits? That would be interesting. Incidentally, exactly the same thing turned out to be the case with another symphony by Franke. A scholarly piece of work from the beginning of this century also casts doubt on the large number of his works.
 

I have, of course, replied, supplying the evidence they asked for. I have also enquired about the identity of the other symphony which was due to be recorded and subsequently identified as by someone else.

The CD is still advertised as for sale on their website:
https://vogtundfritzsound.de/musikcd/klassik/hans-franke/
It'll be interesting to see whether it's actually taken down...

That's the link I used – and when you click on 'Jetzt bestellen' [order now] you are not taken to a web shop but to the contact page. I then used the contact form and got the reply I have mentioned...

This seems to be the sequence of CD events:

1) A trial run, back in the early 2000's, of chamber music (containing the Hill,inter alia). Franke's daughter was alive, but in her mid-80s.  The  CD attracted some attention including a tepid review on Musicweb and a rapturous one , four years later, on the Classical Music Guide.  No adverse waves resulted;

2) The Franke Foundation, at round the time of the death of Franke's daughter in 2008, as the heir to her estate, essayed the String Quartet no 4, on a disc containing better-known composers such as Dvorak.  I have not been able to trace any reviews,and am unaware of anyone on the Forum owning the disc.  Again,no waves resulted;

3) Around 2015, I think, the Franke Foundation decided to fund the recording of the first orchestral work in Franke's name, the Klein Suite for String Orchestra. Again, it was released on a disc containing plenty of cover,if cover was needed, in the form of pieces of string music by other composers. The CD entitled "Landscapes" featured a fairly well-known orchestra, the South Bohemian Chamber Orchestra. There are 21 recordings featuring that orchestra on Discogs, none of which seem to be this CD.  Again, I have not yet been able to track down any reviews, although it wouldn't surprise me if the Czech musical press have reviewed it. None of the Forum appear to possess a copy,and,once again, no waves resulted;

4) In 2018, for the first time. rhe Foundation was emboldened to fund full scale orchestral works, the (Kauffmann) Symphony and the (Woelfl) Piano Concerto,  and the CD released. It was available for purchase until at least the other day. Several Forum members acquired a copy, and it was very well-received, although I have not seen any reviews, and no adverse waves resulted until now;

5)  At some stage, either before or, more probably, after this release, the Foundation planned to fund a recording of another symphonic work in Franke's name, to be played by that Anhalt orchestra and conducted by Berg. The work was recognised as spurious. No public commotion ensued, but Bo Hyttner of Sterling Records ,we speculate, got to hear about it;

6) The Foundation has not made any further attermpts to fund recordings to date.

(Edit: The scholarly work,referred to in the publishers' latest reply, dating back a couple of decades, needs to be identified and unearthed)

Terry: the Symphony/PC recording was made in June 2007. You may want to adjust your chronology...

(https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51Hdd-5wqyL.jpg)

That blows a hole in my chronology.  In the lifetime of Franke's daughter, and funded by the Franke Foundation, even though they had not yet succeeded to the estate?   Am I correct, that ,for whatever reason, it wasn't released until 2018?

Just speculating - is it conceivable that the "scholarly work" casting aspersions on Franke's work-ethic is one and the same as that penned by Gabriele Schaller?

QuoteAm I correct, that ,for whatever reason, it wasn't released until 2018?

No: I only came across the CD in July 2018 and others clearly had it/other recordings before I did. The Classical Music Guide post dates from April 2008 and says nothing about the CD in question: http://classicalmusicguide.com/viewtopic.php?t=21555

Quote from: terry martyn on Monday 08 January 2024, 13:16Just speculating - is it conceivable that the "scholarly work" casting aspersions on Franke's work-ethic is one and the same as that penned by Gabriele Schaller?

Quite possibly. I can't think of any other. Let's hope that Ilja comes up with the goods...

Allmusic claims the orchestral disc was released in 2008. I'll see if I can find any notation of any acquisition - library, e.g.- of the disc being acquired around that year...
Incidentally if anyone's near Munich and has access to the BSB audio library, they have/their catalog lists the orchestral disc and also: "Festival München 2010 : Herbert Baumann und Freunde ; Kammerkonzert mit Werken für Streichquartett und für Gitarre und Streichquartett" (contains Franke quartet no.5 in A, October 14 2010 performance), "Bläserkammermusik des 20. Jahrhunderts : Herbert Baumann zum 85. Geburtstag" (contains a performance of the Quartetto eufonico also from October 2010),"Bläserkammermusik des 20. Jahrhunderts : Herbert Baumann zum 85. Geburtstag" (Kleine Suite Op.863) and their catalog also lists the CD of the piano trios and quintet no.3... but they are as and have been as interested in picking up scores and recordings by and of more accomplished, worthy unsungs...

note: where a H. Franke is listed as an arranger or composer and it seems possible a very young Hans Franke might be involved, remember Hermann Franke lived 1834-1919 though his own op.#s did not get much past 86 or so...

(e.g. ÖNB lists "Die Fahrt zum Licht : eine symphonische Dichtung für grosses Orchester und Chorgesang" by Paweł Kuczyński arranged (for piano duet) by H. Franke, published by Litolff. Further research does reveal this is an arrangement by Hermann Franke specifically and published ca.1906, but this kind of ambiguity arises...)

Question: is there actually any hard evidence (apart from recordings) of concert, i.e. public performances of works ostensibly by Franke?

This is the list of projects promoted by the Hans Franke Foundation:

CD-Produktion des Ensemble Tedesco
Polyarte-Festival Schweinfurt 2015
Konzerte des Duo concertant (Klarinette und Klavier)
Konzerte des Ensemble Tedesco (Streichquartett) in Norddeutschland
Konzerte des K.u.K. Klavierquartetts in Süddeutschland
Konzerte des Hofstall-Bläserquartetts Würzburg
Konzerte von Barbara Hesse-Bachmeier (Sopran) und Stanislav Rosenberg (Klavier)
Polyarte-Festival München 2010
Hans-Franke-Kammermusikwettbewerb
CD-Produktion der Südböhmischen Kammerphilharmonie Budweis
CD-Produktion mit dem Brandenburgischen Staatsorchester Frankfurt
https://hans-franke.de/hans-franke-stiftung/foerderbeispiele/

Trouble is, we've no idea what was performed at the events held in public.

Here is a photo and description of a presentation made to Franke's daughter on the occasion of the founding of the Hans Franke Stiftung on 4th December 2006:
https://www.mainpost.de/regional/schweinfurt/art-3812609

Note the presence of Elke Tobler-Vogt and Gerhard Vogt.

I've now received this reply from conductor Golo Berg (in English):

It was like this: Because it fit into our theme of "hunting", we played the finale "Der Jäger und die Jagd" from the 5th Symphony in E major op. 785 "Deutscher Wald" by Hans Franke in Dessau in September 2006. At that time there was a printed catalog of his works from 1996. There was also an exchange of letters with a Prof. Günter Klaus from Oberursel, probably an acquaintance of Franke's daughter Ms. Prokop, and then correspondence with the Vogt publishing house.

However, I was able to identify the music as a plagiarism of the overture to "Der Widerspenstigen Zähmung" by Joseph Rheinberger.

I would be happy if you would keep me updated!

How unfortunate! The piece identified by Golo Berg as being by Rheinberger was recorded on a Signum CD by the Frankfurt (Oder) orchestra back in January 1994 - release date 1995.

It seems that the revival - at least in recordings - of the forgotten music of the Romantic period has turned out to be the undoing of whoever is/was responsible for this dreadful deception.

Quote from: Alan Howe on Monday 08 January 2024, 14:32Question: is there actually any hard evidence (apart from recordings) of concert, i.e. public performances of works ostensibly by Franke?

Konzerte des K.u.K. Klavierquartetts in Süddeutschland

Trouble is, we've no idea what was performed at the events held in public.

According to 'Leporello', the cultural magazine for Würzburg, Mainfranken and Babmberg, the K.u.K. Klavierquartett performed Franke's Piano Quintet (1942) at Schloss Werneck on 8 May 2011, see here (https://www.leporello-kulturmagazin.de/assets/files/hefte/lepo-04-11-screen-1.pdf), page 16.

Ernest Pool: His Family

Margaret Wilson: The Able McLaughlins

Louis Bromfield: Early Autumn

Julia Peterkin: Scarlet Sister Mary

Oliver Lafarge: Laughing Boy

Margaret Barnes: Years of Grace

Carol Miller: Lamb in His Bosom

Harold L Davis: Honey in the Horn
--

What is this list of books above? Has anyone ever heard of these authors or their works? This is a select list of American novels published in the 20 year period from 1918 to 1938. Not only that, each one was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, yet I'll bet no one has heard of them or their authors.

It occurs to me how easy it is to perpetrate a fraud like the Franke one. Most works of art disappear in time, even those that were critically celebrated in their day like the ones that I listed above. What is to stop someone from copying out Ernest Pool's "His Family" and then submitting it to a publisher as a new work?  Who at Random House, even a well read person, would recognize it?  Until recently, this would've been quite easy to do and might have gone undetected. Only the recent massive digitization of books would now make it fairly easy to unmask. And again, I've limited my list only to the celebrated books of their day, never mind all the reasonably good ones that got reasonably good reviews but disappeared even more quickly than these.

I wonder if there are more Joyce Hattos and Hans Frankes out there than we imagine.

That's a good point. Bromfield is the only name I recognise here (without ever having read anything by him). Yes, there may well be more instances of fraud than we'd like to think.
In German, there is the term 'Nihilartikel' which was (is?) used by compilers of reference works to reveal copyright infringements. See this entry in World Wide Words (http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-nih1.htm).

I am a bit perplexed by the chronology  .It seems that this plagiarised movement was actually performed in September 2006.  That picture of the establishment of the Franke Foundation dates from December 2006.  The Kauffmann/Woelfl works were recorded in 2007 and released sometime in 2008, probably lateish,as the Classical Music Guide reviewer doesn't mention the release.

Where.in all this,is the date of the discovery of the plagiarism by Berg, and how does all this reconcile with the words of Christoph Hammer about it being "no news" and reconcile, indeed, with his actions in conducting those works?

In short, I don't know. Maybe Christian Hammer had already made his recording before hearing about Golo Berg's experience of plagiarism.

However, one thing we now know for sure.  At least part of Franke's "Forest" Symphony was a plagiarism

I don't think the remainder of the symphony existed at all. After all, the supposed finale was merely a stand-alone overture.

By far the most obscure music plagiarised turns out to have been by far the most distinguished, i.e. Kauffmann's Symphony. So far, that is.

The score presumably survives intact.  Maybe Franke did a kind of Frankenstein job on the symphony.

We don't know that. In fact, we shouldn't presume anything. We only have evidence of the one 'movement'.

I was referring to Eric's post on this thread, no 80, Alan, which seems to bring up availability of the score

Well none of Franke's orchestral music is listed as available in score on the publisher's website now.

Quote from: Alan Howe on Monday 08 January 2024, 15:18I've now received this reply from conductor Golo Berg (in English):

It was like this: Because it fit into our theme of "hunting", we played the finale "Der Jäger und die Jagd" from the 5th Symphony in E major op. 785 "Deutscher Wald" by Hans Franke in Dessau in September 2006. At that time there was a printed catalog of his works from 1996. There was also an exchange of letters with a Prof. Günter Klaus from Oberursel, probably an acquaintance of Franke's daughter Ms. Prokop, and then correspondence with the Vogt publishing house.

However, I was able to identify the music as a plagiarism of the overture to "Der Widerspenstigen Zähmung" by Joseph Rheinberger.

I would be happy if you would keep me updated!

This is very enlightening - and seems to affirm the idea that Franke doesn't seem to have been the most careful plagiarist -The Der Widerspenstigen Zähmung overture doesn't sound like a symphonic movement in the slightest. It's Rheinberger at his most Rossinian, and I'm almost beginning to see John Boyer's point in accusing Franke's heirs in scrambling together seemingly random scores in order to create an oeuvre.

What I would like to see are facsimiles of the manuscripts.  Who's handwriting are they in?  What is the condition of the paper?  Do they even exist?

Quote from: terry martyn on Monday 08 January 2024, 17:51I was referring to Eric's post on this thread, no 80, Alan, which seems to bring up availability of the score

That was then. This is now...

I think we're beyond assumptions now - and that includes me. Just to repeat: the only actual evidence we have of this other symphony is the finale which turns out to have been a stand-alone overture by Rheinberger.

Quote from: Gareth Vaughan on Monday 08 January 2024, 18:02Well none of Franke's orchestral music is listed as available in score on the publisher's website now.

They're still at edition49. And there are still chamber works at Vogt & Fritz which, I imagine, will remain there until properly identified.

My point was that those symphonies supposedly by Franke which Eric notes as listed by WorldCat in editions by Vogt & Fritz seem to have disappeared from their catalogue, if indeed they ever existed in "complete" scores. Very suspicious...

33 people have heard of that Wilson work (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/59845) (the uploader and 32 who downloaded it), so I say you're mistaken about that one. And while Ernest Pool's book indeed is lost to the ages, Ernest Poole's "His Family" has been read by several acquaintances of mine on Goodreads and was published long ago to be in the public domain, like the Wilson.

Let's not get distracted, please! This is complicated enough as it is...

I've never actually seen any scores of symphonies by Franke listed by the publisher - only the CD. If they were, they're long gone. And the WorldCat entries don't list any libraries holding them. Did they really exist?

Just answering your question.

QuoteAnd the WorldCat entries don't list any libraries holding them. Did they really exist?

That's what I mean.

Quote from: eschiss1 on Monday 08 January 2024, 21:06Just answering your question.

Thanks, Eric.

Quote from: Gareth Vaughan on Monday 08 January 2024, 21:32

QuoteAnd the WorldCat entries don't list any libraries holding them. Did they really exist?

That's what I mean.

Apologies, Gareth. I misunderstood.

Here's an oddity: all the WorldCat entries for Frank's symphonies give the location of the publisher as Ettlingen. However, these days they're in Schweinfurt.

Many works still available only on rental and never otherwise "published" are listed in Worldcat only as D-B entries like that, not just these works attributed to Franke, to be as fair as the situation requires. (As with the 4th symphony, we know some of these works once existed but due, as you say, I agree, to the absence of paper trail and the fact that any relevant libraries where the manuscripts that might still exist, if any, are not apparently @ Worldcat's list or any others (e.g. ÖNB) that we've checked, it's hard to check whether the modern published works and the holograph works that might be somewhere are actually the same work when we can't even find the latter. Etc. :) )

The other Franke looks more interesting, now that I look through his scores digitized by SBB (Staatsbibliothek Berlin) (well, more interesting than I'm told the 3rd piano quintet that might be by Hans Franke is; just how interesting is hard to tell). A big vocal/choral/orchestral setting of Emanuel Geibel in full score, some sacred unaccompanied choruses, other things. An unknown for now, but after I finish reading for tomorrow's bookclub etc., something to give a closer look to- just because only a few unsungs have or will give[n] me that feeling of real, thrilling, joyous discovery hasn't stopped me from that addict's impulse of trying again :)

Thanks for all your great research, Eric.

Excerpts from the Kleine Suite can be heard here (scroll down as this 3-movement work is last on the CD):  https://barbara-hoelzer.de/cd-musik/

Does anyone recognise the music?

So,one of the couplings is a work by our acquaintance, Elke Tober-Vokt

Quote from: Alan Howe on Tuesday 09 January 2024, 10:32Excerpts from the Kleine Suite can be heard here (scroll down as this 3-movement work is last on the CD):  https://barbara-hoelzer.de/cd-musik/

Does anyone recognise the music?

I can't say that I do, but it should be relatively easy to identify; it's basically three fugues, and on first glance it sounds a bit more modern than most of the other stuff Franke's appropriated.

I agree, Ilja.

However, I believe I have now got to the bottom of this whole sorry saga. First, though, I will have to check with Mark and other interested parties exactly what we can disclose here at UC.

More news anon.

Quote from: Ilja on Tuesday 09 January 2024, 12:10I can't say that I do, but it should be relatively easy to identify; it's basically three fugues, and on first glance it sounds a bit more modern than most of the other stuff Franke's appropriated.

Might it be August Halm's Three Fugues for string orchestra (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9spGaaMPqW0)?

Quote from: Mark Thomas on Tuesday 09 January 2024, 13:42

Quote from: Ilja on Tuesday 09 January 2024, 12:10I can't say that I do, but it should be relatively easy to identify; it's basically three fugues, and on first glance it sounds a bit more modern than most of the other stuff Franke's appropriated.

Might it be August Halm's Three Fugues for string orchestra (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9spGaaMPqW0)?

It doesn't sound like the Halm. It's in three movements: fast - slow - fast.

No, it doesn't. I hadn't spotted the earlier link to the audio extracts.

Quote from: Alan Howe on Tuesday 09 January 2024, 13:01I will have to check with Mark and other interested parties exactly what we can disclose here at UC.

Without being too mysterious about developments, we feel on reflection that some of the information Alan has received away from UC cannot yet be disclosed here without the permission of some third parties. We'll do that as soon as we can. However, in the meantime it would be very helpful to know of any contemporary references colleagues might find to Hans Franke himself in journals, newspapers or reference books in the 20th century up to the end of WWII, when the recorded works were supposedly composed and premiered. Thanks.

Quote from: Mark Thomas on Tuesday 09 January 2024, 17:58...in the meantime it would be very helpful to know of any contemporary references colleagues might find to Hans Franke himself in journals, newspapers or reference books in the 20th century up to the end of WWII, when the recorded works were supposedly composed and premiered. Thanks.

Do we have a list, perhaps from the notes from the existing recordings, of when these performances allegedly took place? For example, one of the conductors said to Alan the following:

"The score that was made available to me is a handwritten one with 4 entries from performances, 2 of which were in the Berlin Philharmonie (1941 + 1942) supposedly under Wilhelm Furtwängler."

A German speaker with access to the concert records of the Berlin Philharmonic should be able to verify this.  I think specific examples would be the easiest to confirm since there will be a date and place that one can verify. General searches for any reference to the works of a composer named Hans Franke will probably be more difficult, since even information on real composers can be difficult to trace. 

What we need are not references to performances, etc. because these can so easily be forged - rather, we need original sources. So, for example, in the programme notes accompanying the concert given by Golo Berg back in 2006 featuring Rheinberger's Overture "The Taming of the Shrew" masquerading as the finale of Franke's 5th Symphony, we find this passage:

<<Die Uraufführung fand am 7. Juni 1943 im Opernhaus Teplitz mit dem Städtischen Orchester Teplitz unter der Leitung von Bruno C. Schestak statt. Nach dem Krieg fanden Aufführungen in Bad Homburg und Bad Kissingen statt. Richard Pflegshörl beschrieb Frankes Sinfonie in seiner Rezension im ,,Teplitz Schönauer Anzeiger" vom 10. Juni 1943...>>

Translated:

<<The premiere took place in the Opera House in Teplitz with the Teplitz Municipal Orchestra conducted by Bruno C, Schestak on 7th June 1943. After the War performances took place in Bad Homburg and Bad Kissingen. Richard Pflegshörl described Franke's Symphony in his review in the "Teplitz Schönauer Anzeiger" of 10th June 1943...>>

So: can we possibly find any original documentation of these performances and the newspaper review? I have emailed the orchestra, now called the North Czech Philharmonic in Teplce, to see whether they have anything in their archives.

FWIW, this is the original reference to the A minor symphony (i.e., probably Kauffmann's) that I referred to earlier (link (https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/newspaper/item/BUDE2QT3XL4R5YGFYSDBOZKNF2X3H6Q6?query=%5C"Hans+Franke%5C"+symphonie+teplitz&hit=2&issuepage=5)). From: Illustriertes Tageblatt : sächsische Heimatzeitung des Stolle-Verlags; Ausgabe E ; Für das obere und untere Elbtal : (Elbtal-Abendpost, Sächs. Dorfzeitung u. Elbgaupresse), 23 October 1940, p. 5. Not easily forged, I think, unless it was done at the time.

"Gruna. Aus dem Musikleben.
Der Grunaer Kapellmeister und Komponist Hans Franke, Rothermundstraße 3, hat eine Sinfonie in a-moll vollendet, die jetzt in Teplitz-Schönau zur erfolgreichen Uraufführung gelangte"

Translation:
"Gruna. Musical life. The Gruna bandmaster and composer Hans Franke, Rothermundstrasse 3, has completed a symphony in A minor, which has now had its successful premiere in Teplitz-Schönau".

Thanks, Ilja, this is just the sort of thing we're looking for. Assuming this is the Kauffmann Symphony, it points to Franke himself being the fraudster rather than someone else embellishing the reputation of an innocent Franke posthumously, which is one of the key issues we're trying to clarify.

Quote from: Alan Howe on Tuesday 09 January 2024, 18:43What we need are not references to performances, etc. because these can so easily be forged - rather, we need original sources.

Alan, that's what I meant.  If the CD notes said "Symphony X was premiered in Leipzig on December 12, 1938, with Holtzer leading the Gewandhaus Orchestra", then one could check the Leipzig papers and the Gewandhaus archives for confirmation of this claim.

There's also this one (https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/newspaper/item/63VBJCAS4NABJZFCCZLKIDAPAP5QEXUA?query=%5C"Hans+Franke%5C"+symphonie+teplitz&hit=3&issuepage=4), from Die Heimat am Mittag of 18 April 1944, p. 4:

"Der Dresdner Komponist Hans Franke hat eine Sinfonie in F-Dur komponiert, die von dem Städt. Orchester Teplitz-Schönau uraufgeführt wird."

Translation:

"The Dresden composer Hans Franke composed a symphony in F major, which will be premiered by the City Orchestra Teplitz-Schönau".

Note, though, that these took place in Teplitz, at that time in the Sudetenland, in all likelihood under card-carrying Nazi conductor Bruno C. Schestak. Does this make them any more suspicious?

This is the actual newspaper review of the 5th Symphony "Deutscher Wald" reproduced in the 2006 concert programme notes provided by Golo Berg:

<<,,In vier grandiosen Sätzen entwirft der Komponist ein romantisches Bild von farbiger Eindringlichkeit. Ein Idyll lässt uns der erste Satz ,Waldleben' erschauen, wir erleben freundliche Stimmung, hören einen Jagdtross vorüberziehen. Im zweiten Satz ,Der Zauberwald' zieht ein reiches Geschehen an uns vorüber, manchmal mit lieblicher Innigkeit,  manchmal mit geradezu Puccinischer Realistik. Unbändige musikalische Leidenschaft beherrscht diesen Satz. [...] Bei modernster Prägung lässt diese Musik doch mühelos in ihr Gedankengut eindringen und die oftmals komplizierten Harmonien münden doch immer wieder in die befreiende Klarheit des Dreiklangs. Ganz auf Stimmung ist in der Instrumentation der dritte Satz ,Abendstimmung am Waldsee. Idyll' berechnet. Der vierte Satz ,,Die Jäger und die Jagd" schildert ein lebhaftes Treiben von irgendwie königlicher Größe, anhebend mit meisterhafter Fuge und in Jubel und Glanz ausklingend.>>

Maybe this review could be traced. The reviewer was Richard Pflegshörl and the review was published in the "Teplitz Schönauer Anzeiger" on 10th June 1943.

Quote from: Alan Howe on Tuesday 09 January 2024, 20:31Note, though, that these took place [...] in all likelihood under card-carrying Nazi conductor Bruno C. Schestak. Does this make them any more suspicious?

Alan, what do you mean by "suspicious" in this instance?   What would the conductor's NSDAP membership have to do with the authenticity of the event or the actual authorship of the work performed?   I'm just curious as to what you were driving at. 

It appears that Franke worked closely with this particular conductor in German-occupied Sudetenland; Schestak was also a high-ranking Nazi. Who knows what was going on between the two of them? A plagiarist and his willing co-conspirator, perhaps? Or his useful idiot? The Nazis were, after all, rampant myth-makers - and anti-modernists concerned to establish High German Art, which included music.

There's a difference between a verifiable contemporary notice of a performance and one which reports performances years before, surely? Teplitz and Bruno C. Schestak rather than Leipzig and Furtwängler may indicate Franke's marginal standing rather than an imaginary event. After all, why would others join Franke in his fantasies?

At that time (from 1938 onwards) Teplitz-Schönau was part of Germany and a rather posh spa town, which explains the presence of its own symphony orchestra.

Bruno Schestak was quite an active Nazi (source: Fred K. Prieberg, Musik im NS-Staat), who was Landesleiter for the Reichsmusikkammer in Saxony in 1935 (p. 184). Prieberg mentions him one other time (p. 168):

Quote[Speakers at a National Socialist meeting in the Kroll Opera House in Berlin] drew up a general plan for the German music industry, announced the introduction of a licence card to streamline the profession and screen members, and made it clear that the Reichskartell already formed the preliminary stage of a German Chamber of Music [Musikkammer]. It was the first organisational united front. Pressures brought about corporate membership of existing music associations. Even at this stage, the aim was to achieve total control, and this claim did not even stop at the border:
We will gladly open the gates to Germany for foreign artists of world renown, but not through business-minded and capitalist Jewish concert organisers, whether they are in Germany or abroad. But all foreign artists must also receive their licence from the Reichskartell or later from the Musikkammer, which entitles them to be engaged as soloists.

To prepare for this, the NSDAP Gauleitung Sachsen made local preparations and commissioned Bruno Schestak on 16 August 1933 to organise the Saxon musicians in a "Department of Music of the NSDAP Gau Sachsen". At this time, work on the Reich Chamber of Culture legislation had already reached the final drafting stage and existing musicians' organisations had largely been brought into line - often through the actual occupation of their executive offices and the replacement of the once democratically elected board of directors with one that was determined according to the "Führer principle" and loyal to the system.

I think it's important, and possibly relevant, to realize just how many brownie points could be won in the Nazi years by producing "real" German music. The farce of the attempts to replace Mendelssohn's music to A Midsummer Night's Dream by an "aryan alternative" is the most eye-catching episode perhaps, but far from the only one.

1942 Zeitschrift für Musik reports the performance of Franke's Symphony No.4 in E-flat major (or E major as they reported in the second blurb) "Frühling im Tal der Müglitz" on Jan. 12, 1942 in Teplitz-Schönau by the Städtische Orchester under Bruno C. Schestak. First mention (Jan. 1942) (https://archive.org/details/Nzfm1942Jg109/page/n57/mode/2up?q=franke), second mention (Feb. 1942) (https://archive.org/details/Nzfm1942Jg109/page/n127/mode/2up?q=franke).

Same place, same conductor...

Very well, but I still think the NSDAP connection is merely coincidental.  The party (or rather, Hitler, since I've read that party members found classical music as boring as did Joe and Jane Sixpack) liked composers like Wagner, Strauss, Pfitzner, Orff, Schillings, and Schmidt, all of whom composed music far more advanced than the fossils that Franke was resurrecting under his own name. 

Working with a member of the Reichsmusikkammer would have been merely coincidence, like working with a CP member in Stalinist Russia. 

By the way, around that time there was an art and music critic in the Stuttgart area called Hans Franke - not our guy, though.

I think Ilja's right. The Nazis were attempting to create their own High German/Aryan Music. If Franke wasn't much of a composer himself, what better way would there be to promote himself and curry favour with the Nazi hierarchy than by 'creating' his own music from the obscure works of forgotten German/Austrian/Liechtensteinian composers from the past, such as Woelfl, Hill, Rheinberger and Kauffmann, and getting it performed by a Nazi party musician?

It's just a theory.

But it fits. The performance of a new piece of music in the Nazi years was never coincidental. This is one of the reasons the RMK was formed in the first place: to ideologically screen performances and certainly new works.

Agreed. The music that was performed under the auspices of the Nazis was never merely coincidental. This was the era of 'Degenerate Music', which encompassed modernism, jazz, non-Aryan (especially Jewish) music, etc. All music performed, especially as the Nazis' grip on the culture became ever tighter, had to be officially approved - and Franke would have derived great benefit, not only reputationally, but also financially as a result. Music sourced from 19th century German/ic scores by 'safe' composers would have been particularly well received by party and public alike.

No, there is nothing to learn from what the Nazis liked or disliked.  Richard Taruskin, himself a Jew and the author of the six-volume Oxford History of Western Music, had this to say in his article "The Golden Age of Kitsch", first published in The New Republic (21 March 1994) and later reprinted in his anthology, The Danger of Music and Other Anti-Utopian Essays:

***
The Nazi concept of artistic degeneracy was incoherent and opportunistic [...]. It took very little to
run afoul of the Nazis then, and it costs very little to deplore them now.
Their opposition, especially when it was passively incurred, conferred no
distinction, unless their approval is thought to confer distinction on the
likes of Beethoven or Wagner. There are no lessons to be learned from
studying the Nazi index of banned musical works, which, like the Nazi
canon, contained masterpieces, ephemerae, kitsch, and trash, covering a
wide stylistic and ideological range.

[...]

Strauss's collaboration, like that of Wilhelm Furtwangler, offered the Nazis
the most potent insurance they could buy against the charge of barbarism.
Which is why, for the Nazis, the first question about a work of art was never,
What does it say? It was, Who is speaking, friend or foe?

Thus the Slav-blooded, naturalized Parisian Igor Stravinsky, because he was
assumed to be a foe, became an exhibit in the Dusseldorf show. The mortified
composer, through his German publisher, B. Schotts Sohne, protested to the
German Bureau of Foreign Affairs at his inclusion, explicitly disavowing "Jewish
cultural Bolshevism" and objecting in particular that the insulting caption
under his portrait in Dusseldorf read, "Whoever invented the story that Stravinsky
is descended from Russian noble stock?" As he had previously taken the precaution
of submitting an affidavit to his publisher, in lieu of the Reichsmusikkammer's
official questionnaire establishing Aryan heredity (and as the
publisher had placed an item in the papers quoting Richard Strauss on Stravinsky's
enthusiasm for Hitler's ideas), he was able to receive the satisfaction of a
declaration from the German government affirming its "benevolent neutrality"
toward him, and his career suffered no further setbacks in the Third Reich until
the war. In 1938 he came to the German capital and recorded his ballet Jeu de
cartes with the ganz judenrein Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

And it was because he was a national of an Axis ally that Bela Bartok, like
the composers of Mussolini's Italy, was assumed to be a friend of the Reich
and was therefore left out of the exhibition of Entartete Musik. The Hungarian
composer, who had refused his publisher's request to fill out what
he called "the questionnaire about grandfathers," attached the e-word to
himself in protest at his exemption, and tried to prevent the performance
of his music in Germany and Italy. Early in 1939 he wrote to an official of
the Deutscher Rundfunk about his own First Piano Concerto that he was
"astonished that such 'degenerate' music should be selected for—of all
things—a radio broadcast."
***

No, they were concerned only with Jewish identity and nothing else.  Everything else, from Bach to Bartok, was acceptable.  Pursuing the Nazi Conspiracy theory regarding Franke is just going down a rabbit hole.

Mr. Boyer, as far as I know, there's a complete- or at least practically-complete, but a whole lot of effort has been put into it by the Furtwängler estate - database of Wilhelm Furtwängler's live performances available online.

There's a book-length treatment of music under Nazi rule that I know of that may be more exact than the late Mr. Taruskin's treatment (at the least, I expect it takes into account more the arbitrariness of a 12-year regime and that what was true in one year was not always true in another.)

Quote from: eschiss1 on Wednesday 10 January 2024, 01:14...as far as I know, there's a complete database of Wilhelm Furtwängler's live performances available online.

Perhaps you could post the link in a separate Bill Furtwangler thread.  It would be interesting to see his repertory of unsung composers. 

Mr. Boyer, we disagree - and that's fine.

Having said that, to discuss a case of musical plagiarism that (sofar as I can see now) took place entirely during the Nazi years and in which a semi-prominent Nazi cultural official played a role, and dismiss the possible influence of specific and well-known Nazi cultural politics and its proclivities beforehand, seems ... careless.

I'm inclined to agree with John that the Nazi angle is a red herring, although that's not to dismiss Ilja's point entirely. However, if we're moving to the view that it was Franke himself who perpetrated his frauds, not someone doing so to bolster his reputation posthumously, and that the Teplitz premieres were genuine then the Nazi era could simply have made it easier for him to get performances because it removed from the concert scene all that music banned by the Nazis. Even if his compositions weren't of a style that was actively promoted by the regime, neither were they anything which offended them. 

That's very true. The removal of anything Jewish or otherwise "Entartet" and "Un-Völkisch" (and this went way beyond just Jewish influences) left a sizeable gap in the repertory - one that it has never entirely recovered from.

I have received a reply from the Czech orchestra about the performance of Franke's 5th Symphony in Teplitz in June 1943. Unfortunately, they have no information about this particular concert. However, they have sent me a number of scans relating to the activities of conductor Bruno Schestak, so I'm now going to look through them and see whether there's anything of interest...

Unfortunately, there's no sign of music by Franke in any of the concert advertisements they sent me scans of. Plenty of evidence of Bruno Schestak's work, though. He's a constant presence.

We still have only references to performances of Franke's music. The nearest we've got so far to an original source is the review of the concert in Teplitz in June 1943 which featured the 5th symphony, but that was copied from an as-yet unknown source for the programme notes for Golo Berg's concert back in 2006. I have, therfore, emailed him to find out whether he remembers what the source of the review was - and who supplied it.

There is no reference to Franke in the list of concerts at the French Furtwängler website.

Can we now say that the reference in the CD (PC/Symphony) booklet to two performances with the Berlin Philhamonic under Furtwängler in 1941/2 is fake? If so, it throws into doubt all the claims to performances of 'his' music elsewhere. What makes the Furtwängler connection doubly suspicious is the lack of precise dates - 1941/2 is very vague. Wouldn't such a prestigious connection - i.e. to one of the most famous conductors on the planet - have been very carefully documented?

If the music is largely plagiarised, then maybe Franke's whole back story is fake too - or, at the very least, heavily embellished.

So: original sources, please! So far we have none, zero, zilch, nada, zip. Nichts!

By the way,Alan is perfectly correct that Teplitz  was part of Czechoslovakia until the Munich Agreement in late 1938 meant that it was annexed by Hitler. Ilya is also right,as from that date.

True as that is, the cultural connections and exchanges between Teplitz (and the Sudetenland) and Germany go back much further. Particularly considering the activities of the Sudetendeutsche Partei, nazification of the area had been going on well before that date. Teplitz itself appears to have been a very NSDAP-friendly city throughout the 1930s.

And it is a sad fact that the German population as a whole said and did very little in the wake of the demise of Nazism to distance themselves morally from the regime that most of them had silently supported or at least tolerated. The concept of 'war guilt' (or the lack of it) was the subject of the writings of many authors after WW2. I don't think we can rule out Franke's support for - or at the very least use of - the regime and its officials to further his career.

Alan and I have discussed how best to proceed, especially bearing in mind that we now have access to information given to us privately which we can't currently publish on UC, but which is very relevant to our investigations. Whilst most of the people involved in this case have passed away, others have not and so we hope that friends will understand why we've decided to lock this thread temporarily to allow us to pursue several lines of enquiry which lead on from this information. Rest assured that as soon as we can reopen the thread we will do just that. In the meantime, what we still lack is primary sources for the reported wartime concerts mentioned in this thread. Not a transcript of a newspaper report for example, but a scan of the actual story in the newspaper or a concert programme etc. If you do come across anything which gives substance to Franke's claims them please PM or email it to Alan or me. The same is true if you manage to identify the true composers of the D minor Piano Trio, the Piano Quintet or the Kleine Suite.

Many thanks for all your contributions so far, we hope to be able to unlock the thread soon.

A brief update on the progress of our investigation into the Franke affair:

We've now sourced Gabriele Schaller's Franke catalogue published in 1996 (25 years after Franke's death). This focuses on the 87 works (out of a total of 869) which supposedly survived the Dresden firestorm in February 1945 and provides incipits for many of them. As a result, one further "stolen" work has been identified: Hans Franke's "Symphony No.8  Op.797" is actually Eduard Franck's Symphony in A major Op.47. Several hours spent scouring scores at IMSLP have failed to identify the remaining extant Franke symphonies: Nos.4, the first three movements of No.5 and Nos.9 and 17 have so far escaped correct attribution, no doubt because of the obscurity of their composers. No attempt has yet been made to identify the symphonic poems, orchestral suites and overtures, concertos, chamber music, choral and vocal works also included in the survey, but we are widening the search and hope to be recruiting help to do so. Also, a visit will be made next month to the archive in Dresden where the manuscripts are held so that they can be examined and this will hopefully yield further clues as to the true authorship of some of them.

A separate line of enquiry has been to examine Franke's biography as set out in the catalogue and reprinted in the Signum chamber music CD of 2003. Although we've now seen primary evidence (scans of newspaper concert reviews) of wartime performances of Franke's works, we have so far failed to track down any evidence of Wilhelm Furtwängler's alleged performances of the A minor Symphony (the one actually by Fritz Kauffmann), of Franke being at the conservatory or other educational establishments he allegedly attended or of any of his activities as performer and musical administrator outlined in the biography, until after WWII. Similarly, so far we have found no genealogical evidence for Franke himself, his wife or children, although his daughter Erika Prokop was involved in setting up the Franke Foundation and was in contact with Vogt & Fritz, the publisher of Franke's scores and the CD of the 6th Symphony & Piano Concerto. This lack of evidence for anything in the published biography gives rise to the suspicion that Franke himself did not exist but that his biography, and the claims to authorship of works by earlier composers, was the creation of some other person, the most likely suspect so far being the Nazi music director of the Sudetenland, Bruno Schestak, whose reported death in 1950 has also so far proved unverifiable.

We are following a third strand of investigation but at present I'm afraid it wouldn't be prudent to publish details of that here. Rest assured as soon as there is more to report, and the thread can be unlocked, I'll do so.

Important update:

Thanks to our expert US member and researcher, eschiss1, the Symphony No.4 in E major, Op.778 claimed as his own by Franke has been identified as the Symphony in E major by Alban Förster (1849-1916):
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alban_F%C3%B6rster
https://imslp.org/wiki/Category:F%C3%B6rster,_Alban

IMSLP has this entry (scroll down to the works without opus number):

Symphony [No.1] in E major for grosses Orchester (Halle (Saale): Richter & Hopf, 1888; Hannover: Lehne & Co., 1899).
See D-SHm Mus.C30:1 for incipit, instrumentation, etc.
https://imslp.org/wiki/List_of_works_by_Alban_F%C3%B6rster

At present this identification is based only on the incipit for the first movement, so further checks will be necessary with regard to the other movements.

Thank you, Eric!

Note: this now makes six composers plagiarised by Hans Franke: Kauffmann, Wölfl, Hill, Rheinberger, Franck (Eduard) and Förster.

Further important updates:

1. Franke's String Quartet No.5, Op.793 seems, from the incipits, to be the String Quartet No.3 in A major by Alexander Kopylov (1854-1911), but with the inner movements reversed. (Note: this isn't the first time that such a calculated manoeuvre has been uncovered!)
https://www.earsense.org/article/Alexander-Kopylov-String-Quartet-No3-in-A-Major-Op32/

2. Franke's Serenade, Op.814 for Horn and Orchestra may be the Abendgesang (i.e. Serenade), Op.10 by Karl Daniel Lorenz (1816-1866), published in 1855 by Bachmann for horn and piano (orchestrated by Lorenz, we assume):
https://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Lorenz,_Karl_Daniel
Request: This needs to be double-checked - please PM either myself or Mark Thomas. Here's the incipit from the Franke Catalogue:
(http://www.raff.org/otherpix/franke_op.814.jpg)

3. We also need to check whether Franke's Der Spielmann Op.261 is the same as the score of the version by Eugen Hildach, Op.15 No.1 found at IMSLP:
https://imslp.org/wiki/2_Lieder%2C_Op.15_(Hildach%2C_Eugen)
Checked: no match found.

Commentary: The text seems to be the same but I don't see any other similarities with the work in Franke's catalog, even if Hildach's opening cadenza is ignored (and the fact that Hildach's is 6/4 and "Franke's" is in common time.)
   Other "Spielmann"s to Schmidt's text that are at IMSLP or at least in collections at IMSLP even if not currently uploaded there include the first of Heuberger's 3 Op.23 Lieder (we only have no.2 at present, but maybe someone could find no.1 and compare), and possibly Jadassohn's Op.110 No.1 (Volkslieder, "Das Spielmann" "Du mit deiner Fiedel")?
Checks currently taking place.


With many thanks to the forum members who have communicated their findings!

A further update:

Now that Ilja has completed his promised visit to the Franke Foundation archive in Dresden, it's a good time to post an update on our investigations into the Franke fraud, as it has clarified a number of issues:

Firstly, it's clear that, despite our earlier suspicions and the lack of evidence for the pre-war biography quoted in reviews, articles and recordings, Hans Franke did actually exist and wasn't the creation of someone else. He was a jobbing musical administrator in Dresden and the surrounding Saxony area of Germany and it seems likely that he began his plagiarisms of 19th century compositions after suffering continued rejections of his own, poor quality, works. The "premieres" of those fraudulent works began in the war years as Franke no doubt took advantage of the Nazis' policy of removing Jewish and other "degenerate" music from the repertoire, thereby creating a gap which he could fill, although even then these performances were in secondary venues and given by spa or resort town orchestras. There is no evidence, despite his claims, that the Concertgebouw or Berlin Philharmonic ever played any of his symphonies. We are still investigating the role in all this of the Nazi music director of the Sudetenland, Bruno Schestak.

Secondly, there is no evidence for Franke's claim to have composed 800+ works and it's likely that the surviving 87 are his compete catalogue. Although he was living in Dresden at the time of the February 1945 fire storm air raids, his house was not in a part of the city which was bombed and it has survived, making it unlikely that the remaining works were destroyed.

The manuscripts of the 87 works are all impeccably written in the same unvarying hand and are largely free of corrections, implying that they were copied out over a comparatively short span of time - a decade perhaps, rather than over a composer's adult life.

Finally, we have now contacted both the publisher of Franke's compositions and the principal of the Archive with an outline of our discoveries in the hope that they will appreciate that getting to as near the truth as we can is in their interests and that they'll co-operate in our investigation as it continues.

Since the last update no new plagiarised works have been identified but UC members eschiss1 and Reverie have kindly agreed to join the investigation and their skills in identifying plagiarised scores and making digital reconstructions of samples of Franke's works will be great assets.

The thread is now unlocked but we ask members to restrict their posts to concrete evidence about Hans Franke's and Bruno Schestak's lives and identification of Franke's plagiarised compositions. 

Thanks, Mark. And a special vote of thanks to Ilja for making the time to visit the Archive in Dresden.

My I simply echo Mark's request that, having reached this point in our investigations, what we need now is first-hand documentary evidence of Franke's activities, particularly pertaining to the period before World War 2 when biographical facts about him are at best sketchy and at worst completely false. For example, it appears doubtful whether he ever studied under such luminaries as Reinecke or Draeseke because we have not been able to find any evidence that he did.

A final report, for now at least, on the Franke Case.

The only major development is that Ilja managed to have a helpful discussion with the principal of the Franke Foundation and former owner of the publishing company which issued the CDs and published "Franke" scores. She's certain that his daughter had no idea of his plagiarisms and was greatly upset to learn of the first to be unearthed (Rheinberger's Taming of the Shrew Overture masquerading as the finale of Franke's 4th Symphony). The Foundation has not actively promoted his music for some time and instead has been funding music scholarships. It will probably now be renamed and focus solely on that activity. In the last few days the CDs have been withdrawn from sale although the scores are still available under his name.

The professionals involved in establishing the Franke Foundation, in recording and selling the CDs and publishing the scores, all clearly took his biography and authorship of the music on face value, never checked facts as we have done, never questioned the startling inconsistencies of style (although some at recording sessions at least recognised it). They continued with recording the "Symphony No.6" and "Piano Concerto No.1" despite the irrefutable proof of plagiarism which had halted the earlier recording project only a few moths before. All in all, the impression one gets is of a complacent, incurious German musical establishment which was not interested at all in Franke or his music but was happy to help Franke's daughter establish her foundation and secure funding from it.

We think that we have reached the limit of what can we can usefully achieve: Franke has been exposed as a lying plagiarist, the Franke Foundation has acknowledged and accepted that and the recordings at least have been withdrawn from sale. Our final step will be to hand the case over to the German press and it will be up to them whether they wish to pursue the investigation any further.

Thanks to everyone at UC who has contributed to this thread and to uncovering Franke's deception: to Reverie, whose digital realisation of Kauffmann's Symphony unwittingly set the ball rolling and who subsequently digitised extracts from a couple of Franke's other symphonies, to eschiss1 for identifying some of Franke's plagiarisms, but most of all to Alan Howe for initially identifying the various conflicting leads and following them up so doggedly, and to Ilja for his huge amount of research spadework in German, visiting the archive in Dresden and copying scores there and for contacting all the principals involved and persuading them to talk about the case.

I am very pleased to hear all of this and, particularly, that the baton should indeed now be handed to the German press. It's wishful thinking, but it would be splendid if the CD containing Woelfl and (especially) Kauffmann could be re-issued with the correct attribution, as it is a fine recording of an excellent symphony, and it would be a shame if a by-product of our investigations results in permanent suppression of such lovely music.

Agreed, Terry, and we've started the process of trying to interest appropriate CD labels in discussing with the owners the prospect of taking over the rights to the Kaufmann Symphony recording in particular, though of course we've no control over whether that happens in the end.